A Tangle of Thorns
by sad little tiger
Summary: She must sacrifice everything to please her ravenous god.
1. It Was Love At First Sight

_"It was love at first sight, and last sight, and ever and ever sight."_

 _\- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita_

* * *

She was seventeen when she fell deeply, madly in love. It was the first and final time.

He stood among the Rodin castings, as still and serene as any piece of artwork while everyone moved about him. His true face concealed by a even truer masque of himself - a gilded lion with enraged eyes and a roaring maw. She too hid her identity with a yet more accurate one - a jewel-toned butterfly masque, fit for Italian royalty during the days of Fortunato and Montressor.

As they stared at one another, between the entangled limbs of Rodin's lovers, she wondered if it was possible to live one's entire life in a single gaze.

* * *

"Excella, mingle. _Please_ ," her mother hissed. She took another deep draw of her wine and fanned herself. Her daughter though sat, motionless and drab, except for the swinging of her feet under the chair. "This is all for you, my love… the museum we rented out, the banquet… These scientists… they're here for _you_. To celebrate _you_ , sweetness." She tried a softer tone, a more encouraging one. "You look so beautiful tonight… so sophisticated. Perhaps you'll meet a boy, yes?"

Excella had years of experience with her mother's antics of vicarious glory. She knew the verbal tricks her mother used, the proverbial strings her mother pulled expertly… to get her beautiful daughter to dance to her marionette beat. Tonight, Excella remained steadfastly her introverted self.

The last thing her mother wanted her to do was "meet a boy". She knew she might as well have become a cloistered nun - her parents would object to any dalliances outside of her work. Her name had to be protected at all costs. She was a Travis, after all; a member of Italy's most wealthy, most devoutly Catholic families.

Which explained how she'd made it to seventeen without ever having been on a date.

Never kissed anyone besides her father, on the cheek.

Let alone, lost her virginity. _God forbid_.

She was destined, she knew, for mediocre success in her field, a field of study which she did even not truly enjoy, and a somewhat-arranged marriage at a _respectable_ age… perhaps 45, if her meddling parents got exactly what they wanted from their only child.

Her mother tossed back what was left of her drink. "I really… I really cannot understand what in the name of our Lord is wrong now, Excella. _Really._ What more could you ask for - what more could you _possibly_ expect?"

Excella picked at her manicured nails until the edge of a French tip chipped off. _There. Much better_ , she thought to herself as her mother looked on, appalled.

"With my help pushing you through the red tape, you've completed University a full three years ahead of schedule." Her mother sounded increasingly agitated. She _always_ listed off her "accomplishments" when Excella upset her. "And… and your father introduced you to that gentleman… what was his name? Rossi. Jonathan Rossi. And now look where you are! You're the youngest geneticist Tricell has ever hired!"

Excella turned to her mother. "The only reason for any of this is Grandmother, Mama."

Her mother bristled at the mention of her own deceased parent. She glared at Excella and crossed herself before getting up. "I need another drink," she snapped and stalked off.

Excella sipped a seltzer water through two little straws, not out of thirst but boredom. She weaved in and out of little throngs of notable, noisy people without attracting notice at her own grand celebration. It was a testament to the nickname which had followed her throughout her short life: Piccolo Topo… _Little Mouse_. She sauntered, her gaze on the marble tiles of the art museum's great foyer, one foot just in front of the other, counting her strange tiny steps, almost clumsy in her silver kitten heels. Her eyes drifted up eventually, taking in magnificent works of Renaissance art - _The School of Athens_ , _Lamentation of Christ_ , _Lady with an Ermine_ … and finally, _Venus of Urbino_.

Her fingers, of their own will, fondled the simple gold cross at her throat.

In the background of the painting was a young girl, digging through a chest, and a matronly woman looking on. In the foreground, there was a bed on which a small dog was curled upon itself, sleeping… and of course, reclining among the pillows was the always-nude Venus.

She followed the curve of the breasts, the pebbled nipples, the soft pale belly, and finally, the hand that rested between her legs. Was it resting though, truly? Or was she… could she be…

Excella lifted her feathered masque and looked down at the painting's plaque. _A gift from husband to wife with many hidden meanings_.

She tapped her little plastic cup as she read about the training of a 17th Century wife. She looked up again, into Venus's placid face and wondered how a woman could be expected to be all things, at all times. It seemed… an unwinnable war.

Perhaps the nunnery was not such a bad prospect.

She tugged her masque back down over her eyes and noticed, in her peripheral vision, a very tall blond man in an entirely black tuxedo. His back was to her; his masque must have been quite large and elaborate, as even from behind, she could see the tumbling of a golden mane.

She moved on from the _Venus of Urbino_ , thinking nothing more of it, or the man in all black.

* * *

A string quartet and skilled pianist played waltzes and mazurkas into the late evening, and the hundreds of guests grew louder and looser with the plying of expensive, but free, alcohol. Women dressed in slinking gowns of lavender, pink, and turquoise ate hors d'oeuvres of buttered escargot and garnet caviar while they laughed too joyously to be truthful. Men held martinis, some with skewers of Spanish olives and others with slices of blood orange, and talked quite seriously amongst themselves about nothing serious at all.

Excella was an island in the crowds. She stood by herself next to Rodin's famed _The Kiss_. She had long since found somewhere else to stare, as the sculpture, in it's rapturous beauty and divine sensuality, depressed her. She knew the statue very well, anyway - to the chagrin of a professor named Sister Rosalie, she had reproduced _The Kiss_ in a colloquium art class.

Her mother had booked the damn museum simply because the priceless piece was on loan to Florence at the time of her inauguration into Tricell Pharmaceuticals Incorporated.

And now that it was live, in-person, dynamic… she couldn't find it in herself to look at it.

The irony burned Excella fiercely.

"Poor Paolo and Francesca… doomed to wander hell eternal."

She turned so suddenly she nearly spilled the cup of seltzer water in her hands.

The man in all black, with the elaborate glittering masque, was standing on the other side of the marble lovers. She saw his character clearly then - a furious lion, beset by a jeweled mane, pulling it's feline lips back to reveal intimidating gold fangs. The feathers of her own masque quivered; she felt her cheeks redden, thankfully beneath all of the rhinestones and sequins.

The string quartet retired for a song, staying their instruments for the piano solo - _Nocturnes: No. 1 in F Minor_. The first haunting notes seemed to float up to the vaulted glass ceiling of the museum and through to the cold white stars above them.

"This was —" he began, gesturing to the marble sculpture.

"Their first kiss," she finished his thought, breathless.

He studied _her_ then and just under the gold fangs of his lion's head, she saw his lips jerk into a tight smile. His eyes were hooded by a heavy, furrowed brow, but she saw that they glinted in the soft, dim light. The world seemed to stop as they stared at each other.

"Albert Wesker," he said after a beat.

"Excella Gionne," she replied, her voice still seeming an unpracticed squeak to his velvety lilt.

"So _you_ … are what all of this fuss is about."

She sighed and nodded, sheepish.

"I detest… essentially everyone here," he said then, his hands in his pockets as he glanced around. No one noticed them, the lion and the butterfly; they were alone together in a sea of familiar strangers.

"So do I," she agreed, refreshed by his forwardness. Her heart beat hard in her chest and she had no idea why.

His fingers found the edge of his masque. He made to pull it off… but then stopped. "I'll show you if you show me," he whispered conspiratorially.

She smiled at him and licked her lips. Her hand, shaking terribly, readied her masque.

"On the count of three," he said.

She smile more widely then, despite herself.

"One."

The music played on.

"Two."

She couldn't hear the roar of the drunken patrons anymore - only _his_ voice.

" _Three._ "

Both of them drew their masques off at the exactly the same moment, and then stood, gazing at each other over the eternally damned lovers.

He was beautiful - not an angel, nor a demon… somehow both. Everything about him, from his bronze skin to his arrogant smirk. _Everything_ made her heart stammer.

"Your eyes…" She managed between halting gasps.

He looked around slyly, as if to check that they were still alone in the world. "Yes. My eyes," he smiled wickedly.

She touched the cross again, her whole body suddenly weak.

Moving so quickly she almost didn't see, he took the hand that held the crucifix in his own and drew her arm across the distance between them. Before she had a chance to protest, he lifted her knuckles to his lips and looked unblinking into her eyes.

The unnatural heat of his mouth seemed to scorch her skin; his lips, wet and hot, seared a brand into her, marking her forever as his.

She felt, all at once, that her life had started and ended in that single moment.

She could do nothing about it. It was done.

"And… if I could get Miss Excella Gionne herself up here for a second," came another American voice, nasal and awkward. Somehow, through her fog of realized predestination, she heard her name called and looked around to see that she wasn't alone… not at all. And the eyes of parents' associates, her new co-workers were upon her, drowning her in the attention she'd avoided all evening.

The American at the microphone tapped it against something metal, sending a vibration and screech through the museum that made the entirety of the ball cringe. "Oops… jeez. Sorry!" he laughed. "Uh… Miss Gionne? Anyone see Miss Gionne around here?"

She turned back to Albert Wesker to find that he'd repositioned the lion's face, disguising himself again from unwanted curiosity.

"Miss Gionne?" the American called and a murmur ran through the crowd. Excella's mother stood off to the side, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

"Go," Albert Wesker whispered, his clever grin still visible under the lion's snarl. "Go now… I'll find you again. I've already found you a thousand times in a thousand lives."

She turned to the man with the microphone then, smoothing the front of her gown… and hesitantly raised her hand.

"Here," she said quietly. "I'm here."

* * *

"Excella!" her mother barked. "What on earth are you dilly-dallying for?"

Excella stood on the museum steps as the well-dressed party-goers rushed and stumbled around her on their way to their cars. In the round-about, dozens of dark-tinted vehicles pulled up - Range Rovers, Mercedes-Benz, and Bentleys, ready and waiting for their precious, tipsy cargo. In the chaos, she rose to tip-toe, searching for a lion in a sea of drunks.

But her lion, sadly, was nowhere to be found.

And so she stood there, in a swarm of people she didn't even recognize, waiting for her life to start again.

Her mother stormed up the steps, some stern words on the tip of her tongue… but she stopped short at her daughter's forlorn expression.

"Excella?" she asked in a moment of genuine concern.

Excella only stared at her as if she didn't know her.

"Oh honey… you're exhausted… look at you… Let's get you home, hmm?"

Excella let herself be led down the steps to her father's waiting limousine. Once she was tucked away safely inside, she cast a final glance at the museum, lit up like a Christmas tree.

She saw Albert Wesker standing near a giant spotlight, which sent a great column of white into the night sky. He pushed the golden masque up so that she caught one last glimpse of his stunning eyes as her father's car turned a corner and disappeared.


	2. I Would Be That String

_"_ _If a violin string could ache, I would be that string."_

 _―_ _Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita_

* * *

A month after the party, Excella chewed a carrot absently, her eyes unwavering and blank, on a self-congratulatory sign in the Tricell Laboratories cafeteria. It was a dreary Monday afternoon in mid-October. A row of narrow windows on the far wall revealed the blustery fall day outside; orange and yellow leaves tumbling and drifting on the chilled wind. Cold, drizzling rain blew intermediately against the glass, blurring the view.

Arianna Malvolia dropped a steaming Chinese food container down on the table and took a seat directly across from Excella, blocking the view of the poster. Excella blinked back to the present and then rooted in a little bag for another carrot.

"What are you thinking, Topo?" Arianna asked, unfolding the white box. Steam billowed out and the heat of the microwaved lo mein burned her hands. She cursed and stuck her index finger in her mouth.

Excella cleared her throat, cleared her mind. "Nothing." She looked up and tried to smile amicably.

"So how _are_ things going… for the youngest employee of our illustrious company?"

Excella frowned at Arianna's biting tone. She had replaced the other woman as the most youthful and promising scientist in Tricell. It hadn't been her intent at all though - it hadn't even been her own doing. Everyone knew that while Excella was a clever girl, she was by no means the most prodigious of her peers. _That_ title was rightfully Arianna Malvolia's.

Excella's name, her family's history with the company, had stolen the hard-earned prestige.

Despite this upset, the two young women tried to be friends. It was uneasy sometimes, but always superficially cordial. After all, they were the minority at Tricell, and so they felt part of a secret team, occasionally helping each other in their respective labs.

"What did you do Saturday night?" Excella asked, attempting small talk.

"David's wife was out of town," Arianna said, quite casually. "We stayed at his villa."

Excella nodded, trying hard not seem alarmed by Arianna's escapades with yet another married lover.

"What did you do Saturday night?"

Excella looked down. "Nothing."

Arianna took a heaping bite of the lo mein. She sucked up a stray noodle and then wiped her fingers on a brown napkin. "Nothing. Really. Nothing at all?"

"Can I ask you a question?" Excella said, changing the subject. She looked seriously at Arianna, her chin resting in her palm.

Arianna finished chewing and crumpled the napkin. She leaned in, wiping her mouth. "This is already progress… go on, please. Please God, ask away." It was a rare thing for Excella to initiate conversation.

"What do you… what do you know about an… _Albert Wesker_?"

It was Arianna's turn to frown. "Albert Wesker? Like… _the_ Albert Wesker? Umbrella's Albert Wesker?"

Excella's hands shot to her mouth, covering it. Her grey eyes were enormous. " _Umbrella?_ He was with Umbrella?"

"Yes! Fucking of course!" Her voice was louder than she had anticipated. Excella _shush_ ed her and Arianna hunched over her lo mein, trying not to laugh. The girls looked around to see if they'd garnered any attention. They were alone in the cafeteria, save for an older scientist with his back to them, speaking in a soft voice to someone on the other end of his phone. " _Yes_ , he was with Umbrella… Jesus, how have you _not_ heard that story?" Arianna rolled her eyes at Excella's ignorance.

Excella just looked at her, stupefied.

"Oh my god," Arianna sighed, drawing out the word _god_. "I can't believe you're asking me this… You _do_ have Google, you know. You should look him up. There's a million articles about him out there. He's like, the Al Capone of science."

"He was not… a _good_ man?" Excella asked, searching for the word.

"Oh no. He was fucking awful. Like… psychotic awful. Turned on the company. Destroyed decades of research. Totally apeshit." Arianna wrinkled her nose. She watched Excella's expression change from inquisitive to skeptical. "I swear. Look it up."

Excella took a deep breath.

"He was hot though, apparently. Like, model-hot."

Excella nodded, lost again in her own thoughts.

"I guess he died in that really bad facility accident in the States, in the late nineties or whatever. But people spot him sometimes, you know?" She twirled more noodles up with the plastic fork. "Like Elvis. Or Tupac."

Excella pushed the bag of carrots away.

"Why are you asking me about Albert Wesker?" Arianna became suspicious, narrowing her eyes. "Why would you—" Her face dropped. "You _met_ him, didn't you? At your dumb party. You met him!"

"What? No!" Excella tried.

"Liar. You met him. You totally met him." She laughed to herself, incredulous. "I heard rumors a while ago that Ray or someone had run into him at a symposium in Milan. I thought they were fucking nuts."

Excella, shaken by her words, stood and began pulling on her lab coat. She flipped the collar and her identification tag fell to floor. She bent to pick it up.

"I can _not_ believe you met him. That's crazy! Hey - I'm serious. You met Albert Wesker. I am _so_ jealous, you little slut." Arianna rambled on, smiling wildly.

"I did not meet him," Excella hissed, clipping the tag back on her lapel.

Arianna looked at her, open-mouthed and mocking in her deadpan way. "You totally wanna _fuck_ him."

Excella, disgusted, straightened the lab coat once more and snatched her carrots off the table before leaving Arianna to eat lunch alone.

* * *

She rode the quiet elevator up to the third floor and weaved her way between stations to get to her own. With a sigh, she slumped into her chair. She looked around before nudging the mouse and waking her recessed computer. The cursor blinked in the search field. She glanced up once more - most of the scientists were still out to lunch. Her eyes darted back to the screen.

The cursor blinked, taunting.

She typed, henpecking out the letters though she was a skilled keyboardist.

A_l_b_e_r_t_W_e_s_k_e_r…

Her pinky finger hoovered just over the Return key.

She closed her eyes. It was ridiculous; he had said only a handful of words to her, and yet… She would look, just this once, and then wipe the man she'd thought about constantly for the past month from her memory.

She tapped the key and held her breath.

* * *

"Do you need help?" her mother asked for the third time, calling to her from the downstairs parlor.

"No," she replied, her eyes rolling up in annoyance. She held the curling iron like a sword, staring at herself in the mirror, biting her bottom lip nervously until she released the dark ringlet. She set the iron down on the edge of her parents' granite sink and quickly combed her fingers through the curl until it loosened and bounced into a gentle, lustrous wave.

She yanked the the plug from the wall and fussed with her hair until it sat exactly the way she wanted it to. She smoothed a finger under her eyes, smudging away any stray shadow, and then she stepped back to look at her entire visage.

"Mama!" she snapped, her mother's reflection startling her. She turned, furious.

"Oh Excella… my darling." She stepped into the bathroom, reaching out to daughter who reminded her so much of a younger, paler version of herself. She captured Excella's face in her cold hands, her acrylic nails like claws on the girl's soft skin. "You look exactly like Priscilla Presley."

Excella wrestled away from her, running her hands over her hair.

Her mother leaned against the arched doorframe dreamily, watching her preen. "Caleb is a very handsome boy."

"Mama…" she warned again, glossing her lips.

Her mother smiled.

"Miss Gionne, Caleb Bianchi has arrived," came the butler's monotone voice from below.

Excella's spine went rigid. Her terrified eyes sought out her mother's.

"Relax," she stroked Excella's face. "You're a Travis."

* * *

She sat, her legs crossed, foot tapping the empty seat in front of her. She was silent.

Caleb sat to her right, talking loudly and inappropriately with a football teammate who had just happened to show up. Her date's friend had invited himself up to their seats and ruined the evening, unknowingly interrupting her first unescorted outing with a boy her age. They laughed raucously about some poor little fool who had made the grievous and immortal error of having intercourse with Caleb's friend while she was menstruating. She understood then, unequivocally, why Arianna preferred her discrete and short-lived affairs with much older married men.

Excella stared at her hands, gloved in lace and frilled at her delicate wrists. Their seats, at least, were box. Her embarrassment was containable - it was a small consolation. She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, trying to ward off the migraine she knew was fast-approaching.

The lights dimmed and lifted three times, signaling the end of intermission. She sighed with relief; the second half of the opera would be underway and then finished and then she could go home to crawl into her bed and sleep off this bad dream. She wondered if that was it - if the rest of her courtships, the rest of her marriageable years, would be spent vetting little boys, chasing them and trying to force adulthood on them.

She just wanted the night to be over.

As the chandeliers lowered to a twilight glow, the door to their box opened. Two men, one rather tall and in a black suit, the other quite a bit shorter dressed in a gaudy cream sport coat, took their seats in front of Excella, Caleb, and his meathead friend.

The obnoxious conversation between the two boys came to a screeching halt.

Caleb's friend looked at him in low light. "I thought you said that these were your parents' season seats?" he whispered.

"They are," Caleb replied, a little louder, bolder. He shifted in his seat, a foul, pouting look on his face.

The orchestra began to play. The horn section first, then the strings, finally percussion. All warming up. There was the sound of chains pulling, and the heavy velvet curtains parted on the stage.

Caleb fidgeted. He looked at Excella; she raised an expectant eyebrow, nodding at the two strangers. He took a deep breath and leaned forward and down.

"Excuse me, but… these are my seats," he said in a hesitant voice.

The tall man in black cleared his throat and turned to them, looking up at where they sat.

Excella gasped, pressing herself back against her seat.

"Would the lady like us to leave?" Albert Wesker asked.

He stared at Caleb, awaiting a reply that he knew would not come, and she saw that he had hidden his fiery eyes behind some sort of contacts. When Caleb didn't protest, he turned back around. His companion, in the creamy toile jacket, propped his feet up on the railing. He wore white alligator wingtips. Excella watched him pull out a monogrammed handkerchief and wipe something on the toe of one of his horrible shoes. Something dark and splattered.

Excella's stomach lurched.

 _Blood._

He noticed her gaze and smiled, a sneaking lopsided grimace. He had long, irregular teeth. She felt her nostrils flare of their own accord. "Miss Gionne," he sneered, tipping the brim of an invisible hat - a flirtation that bordered on threat. She had stop herself from physically recoiling.

"You know them?" Caleb asked angrily.

The patrons a box over turned then, sending glares in their direction. A woman with a a sky-high updo looked hard at Caleb, bringing her finger to her lips. The star soprano took the stage under a single spotlight and the audience clapped thunderously.

"Shut the fuck up, kid. We're gonna miss tha good part," the man in cream said in the most abrasive accent Excella had ever heard. With wolf-smile still plastered on his horrible mouth, he reclined, elbows out, nearly in Caleb's lap.

Excella glanced at her date. She swallowed.

Flustered and filled with impotent rage, Caleb stood. The idiot football player followed suit. Excella breathed through her nose, her back perfectly straight, praying that she might drop into an endless hole, far from prying socialite eyes and male theatrics.

"I'm…" Caleb started. He struggled with what to say next. In front of Excella, Wesker sighed, seemingly unconcerned with contest he'd started. "Non ho intenzione di tollerare questo atteggiamento," Caleb said, switching back to Italian in his nervousness. His friend nodded vigorously. Neither Wesker nor the reclining Yankee moved a muscle. There was an uncertain moment when the only sound in their box was from the orchestra pit. "I'm _leaving_ ," Caleb announced then, to no one and everyone.

Wesker's profile was illuminated by the stage lights - an eerie blue that cast hard, sharp shadows, lending itself ever more to his angular features. She was close enough this time, to see more of him, to greedily, truly _look_. A proud Roman nose, tight, thin lips, cruel cheek bones, deep-set eyes. Excella found herself mesmerized again.

"Excella?" Caleb demanded, halfway up the steps.

Wesker looked down, listening. Waiting.

"Are you coming? _Excella_."

She swallowed again. She couldn't stop hearing his words, his voice… _I've already found you… a thousand times in a thousand lives_. Her hands held each other painfully in her lap. She ignored the little boy, pulling at her metaphorical skirt.

" _Troia_ ," Caleb finally spat out before storming from his parents' box.

Wesker's companion turned to him. They exchanged a knowing look. Wesker shook his head, dismissive and somehow… promising. The Yankee just nodded, settling back into the seat as the horn section started up. A sensual trumpet opened the first few notes of _Summertime_. The whole of the audience was moved to clap softly in approval, even Wesker himself.

Excella sat perfectly still, a little doll. _What was she going to do? Her date, her ride, had just left - she had no idea where. He had cursed at her, called her a word she'd only ever heard in movies. How would she get home? How could she tell her parents about this? Worse, Caleb was a favored intern in the cancer research wing. How would she face him? What had she been thinking? What had come over her? To stay here… with a man, a grown man twice her age, the world thought was dead. And the other one… he was wiping_ blood _off his shoes! Good God, how had this happened?_

Her thoughts disappeared.

Wesker's hand, burning hot, touched her ankle.

She held her breath. _It had been a mistake. Surely. An accident._

The soprano began to sing.

* * *

 _Summertime and the livin' is easy_

 _Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high_

 _Oh, your daddy's rich and your ma is good-lookin'_

 _So hush, little baby; don't you cry_

* * *

She knew it was no accident when he very slowly, very carefully undid the tiny clasp at her heel. As the strap pulled free, exposing her to him, she shivered.

Excella's existence narrowed then… narrowed to the only real sensation she had ever experienced. She didn't hear the music, could barely see. But she felt. She _felt_.

He memorized the small bones of her ankle, the peak of her metatarsals. He measured her small toes with only one easy finger, running up and down the length of each.

His heated fingertips traced the arch of her foot, so softly it was close to pain.

Her whole body jerked with the shock of it, and she tried to move her foot from his shameful touch.

The hand that had been so unrelentingly tender became an iron shackle. He held her, immobile, and very nearly yanked her down to where he desired. He tossed the material of her gown out of his way, past her trembling knee and higher still, exposing her entire leg. He ran his villainous hand up her, devouring her. Terrified, she looked at the man in cream, who was oblivious… or _accustomed_ ; his expression was cool, his eyes purposefully averted as she was fondled right beside him.

* * *

 _One of these mornings you're gonna rise up singing_

 _And you'll spread your wings and you'll take to the sky_

 _But till that morning, there ain't nothin' can harm you_

 _With daddy and mammy standin' by_

* * *

Wesker held her captive, nuzzled her, rubbed his face against her smooth, bare thigh - _feline_. His hot breath fanned over her skin, his mouth so close… close enough to bite. She whimpered, her lacy fingers over her mouth.

"Boss."

Wesker stopped his ministrations. Excella collapsed in her seat, breathing hard.

The man in alligator shoes was peering over the railing at something below the box. A commotion. He ran his hand through his scruffy, strawberry hair. "Yeah. We gotta get a move on."

Wesker let her go and stood. She wrenched away, gasping, stunned, like a rabbit escaping the jaws of death at the last second. She tugged the shimmering peach organza of her skirt over abused leg and stared up at him, hurt and very fearful.

He leaned over her, near to her face. She winced.

"We're leaving now, Ms. Gionne," he whispered, and smiled.


	3. Nowhere Else To Go

_"You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go."_

 _― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita_

* * *

He had her by the lacy hand and she imagined, as he dragged her along the empty corridor of the opera house, that she hadn't been so forcibly _led_ since she was small child. The three of them - Excella, Albert Wesker, and his strange friend - were barreling down a long stretch of crushed red carpet and buttressed gold ceilings. There were angels up there, she knew. Angels and men and clouds, the paint cracked and muted with a hundred years' time.

She could still hear the orchestra playing on, but it seemed so far from them. It echoed strangely in the hall - like listening to music in water.

"Wait!" she cried, stumbling.

They didn't wait; Wesker glanced at her, annoyed.

"My shoe," she said, limping behind him as fast as she could.

She looked back - her silver Manolo Blahnik lay on its side, sparkling on the ruby carpet. The same shoe he'd loosened and never fixed. She tugged at him, but found his force, his momentum, unimpeded. He didn't even slow.

"Leave it, Miss Gionne," he ordered.

He stopped suddenly after a few more strides, pushing her behind him. The man in cream stopped too then, his rodent eyes narrowing. The only sounds were their heavy breaths and the symphony. She realized that Wesker was listening to something - something just out of her range of perception.

Her heartbeat pounded thunderously in her head. "Where are we going? Why are we —"

"Not that way," Wesker said, ignoring her and addressing his companion.

"Wha…Where then?" The Yankee accent was even more pronounced.

Wesker nodded in the direction of an emergency stairwell. The man in cream jogged ahead, lunging at the door, holding it open for them as Wesker pulled her through.

Over her shoulder, she glimpsed one of the theater doors pushing out.

A policeman stepped into the red velvet corridor just as the emergency exit whispered closed.

* * *

He drove a Porsche Panamera, naturally. Shimmering black exterior, luxurious cappuccino interior. It was meticulously clean and reeked of factory newness. The tires screeched as they unceremoniously pulled out of the underground parking garage, but otherwise, the car was silent and prowling, even as he cruelly shifted gears.

"Apologies for the… _unpleasantness_ back there," he said coolly. Excella didn't know whether he meant dragging her nearly half a mile without a shoe, molesting her in public, or frightening her date. She pulled the seatbelt over her chest, her body trembling from the cold, or perhaps the night's collective events.

The car lurched on the snowy street, chirping into fifth.

They shot through a dark, empty intersection as the light turned red. Excella held her breath again, her hands gripping the edge of the leather passenger seat.

"I don't believe I've introduced the two of you." Wesker's fist rubbed the shifter, palming and stroking it absent-mindedly; she watched him, pressing her legs tightly together. Everything he did was somehow obscene. "Miss Gionne, this is my associate… Ricardo Irving."

The man in cream lounged in the back, his eyes closed, even through Wesker's aggressive driving. "A pleasure," he mumbled, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Where —" she cleared her throat, her voice weak. "Where are you taking me?"

"Home. To the arms of your parents." He paused. "Where you _belong_."

She sat, silent.

"Oh, little girl…" he teased then, smiling wickedly. "Such a sour face."

"I'm not a little girl," she said. She was surprised at herself for speaking to him that way. He might belt her across the mouth… or much _worse_. _How stupid of her - he wasn't a peer, he wasn't even her father, he was a_ criminal _._ Her hands were like claws on the seat, out of sight.

He continued to smile though, sneaking a glance at her. "How could I forget… a grown woman now."

She took a deep breath - he must have guessed she'd turned eighteen. Guessed or _knew_.

"Happy belated birthday," he said, amused.

He _knew_. _What else could he know? What else had he found out? He'd been thinking of her, perhaps as much as she had been thinking of him._ The notion both terrified and fascinated her. _Perhaps he too had lain alone and imagined her… No… No, surely not._

He turned down a side street, then another, taking the dangerous, narrow curves much too fast. He was following a little-known backroad to her parents' villa - a winding, one-lane stretch of highway carved into a steep hillside. Excella looked out the passenger window, her eyes trailing up the rocky cliff to the nearly-full moon high in the cold night sky. She knew, on the other side, the crags descended into the December sea, angry and frigid. It would be a terrible, tragic death.

But he was so sure, so certain, like the car was a lithe extension of his body. She felt herself relaxing, against better judgement; the muscles in her stomach which had been tensed for so long, mercifully softened, and her back melted into the embrace of the seat. Even her fingers gave up their death grip on the leather.

She watched the landscape pass by her, thirty-five miles per hour quicker than it should have.

"You know a lot about me," she said.

"Correction." He turned onto Excella's road, much slower than before, the car purring over cobblestone pavers. "I know _everything_ about you, Miss Gionne."

* * *

The trees all along the edge of the acreage loomed tall and bare and black against the satin sky, milky with stars. The night was absolutely still, as only winter nights in the Italian countryside could be.

Wesker pulled the Porsche off the long driveway some distance from the house and parked on the snowy grass, hidden from sight. He killed the headlights and left the engine running for Irving, who seemed to have fallen asleep in the backseat.

"You're going to make me walk the rest of the way? With one shoe?" she asked - a tired, petulant child.

"I wouldn't dream of it…" Wesker said, and got out of the car. His feet crunched on the ice as he moved around to the passenger's side. Her door opened with a shocking punch of freezing air. She shivered, pulling her shawl tighter around her pale arms, and looked up at him in cabs dim light.

He held out his hand, which she took before being thrown roughly over his shoulder. She squealed in protest, clinging to the fine material of his overcoat, her bare legs helplessly dangling over his chest.

"Shh…" he warned her, and started for the house through the powdery-fresh snow.

* * *

He wove between tall, shapeless hedges, the light of the great moon reflecting off the snow, illuminating their path. Without her advisement, he took her to the back door of the kitchen; _the door_ , she thought to herself, _which was farthest from her parents' wing of the villa._ It was possible that he hadn't consciously done so… but even knowing as little as she did about him, she understood that _nothing_ Albert Wesker thought, said, or did was unconscious.

He knew the floor plan of the old family mansion without ever having set foot in it.

It unnerved her, made her heart race. It wasn't entirely unpleasant though, and she had no idea why.

He stood in the doorway with her, his hands in his pockets.

"It's so cold," she whispered, crouching down to retrieve the key beneath the woven mat. She brushed off the snow, her fingers tingling. She stood then and found that he was quite close to her. The immense heat from his body turned the frigid air around him to a fog. He was a human furnace.

"It's wonderful out tonight," he said, low. He smiled. Her heart thumped against her ribs.

"The virus… Progenitor… it does this?" she asked, indicating the way he seemed to thaw everything he touched.

He blinked, and the inviting smile vanished. He had apparently not expected her to do her own research; he was taken off-guard. He drew in a centering breath. "It's a conversation I'd prefer to have inside, if you wouldn't mind."

Excella nodded awkwardly, and then turned to the door and unlocked it.

* * *

He walked around the kitchen, soundless, without her permission or suggestion. He looked at everything, took in all of it - the terra cotta tiles, the stone countertops, the spotless stainless steel. He nodded to himself, his hands clasped behind his back.

Excella watched him while she stripped off her lace gloves; she shivered once more. He looked so out of place there in her parents' kitchen, his profile angelic in the gold light from the range hood.

"Excella?" Her mother's voice called from the end of a nearby hallway.

Excella cut him a warning look.

He tilted his head, his eyes playful. _Get rid of her_ , he seemed to say with that single condescending expression.

"Yes, Mama… I'm home." She paused, listening for a door, or steps on the marble in the foyer. "You can go back to bed."

Wesker moved into the shadows. Panic seized her: _No, please, don't leave._

"You're early. Did you have fun?" Her mother asked, creeping ever closer to kitchen.

Excella sighed, and looked back at him, to be sure he was still there, that he hadn't slipped out into the night. "Yes. We'll talk in the morning? I'm exhausted." She kicked off her one heel for effect. It clattered across the tiles noisily.

"Are you alright?"

Excella's jaw clenched. Her mother, meddling again, was going to ruin her chances with this man. She felt such pure, sudden rage that it scared her. "Domani, _Mamma_ ," she snapped.

Her mother was silent for a moment. "Of course. Tomorrow."

Wesker waited.

"Goodnight," Excella said, the urgency in her voice rising.

"Goodnight, dear."

She listened as her mother shuffled away in her horrible slippers, padded up the stairs, and turned towards her own wing. One of the great wooden doors closed heavily in its frame.

Excella exhaled deeply.

Wesker emerged from the dark, like a character from a Bella Lugosi movie she'd seen as a child. She smoothed her hands over her dress. _What did a girl like her expect to do with a man like him? Play bocci on Saturday evenings? Roast a leg of lamb on Sundays? What had possessed her to think that any of this was a decent idea at all?_

"Would you… like something to drink? Tea, or…"

"Invite me to your bedroom," he said.

* * *

Her hand trembled on the railing, all the way up the grand staircase. He was close behind her, so silent she wondered at the physics of it. She knew he was there though because she could see his tall shadow behind hers; she could feel his unnatural heat. It was as if he was on fire, and setting her alight without so much as a touch.

She turned right at the landing and led the way to the very end of her wing. Time moved slowly, pouring out at a molasses pace. She was nauseous with the thought of what lay ahead. There was going to be a man in her room… he would probably press his mouth to hers, so that she might feel his lips and tongue for the first time, perhaps he would take off her clothes, and his own clothes… They might lie together then, her parents blissfully unaware… Maybe even more would happen, if she decided to let it. Terror and excitement. The sensation of a last step, just before a fall…

Excella didn't even realize she'd stopped in front of her bedroom door until he cleared his throat. She jumped at the sound and fumbled with the doorknob, knowing his eyes were on her every move. She stood, just inside the doorway, fidgeting like a child.

He looked at her expectantly.

"Oh," she said, catching herself. "Please. Come in."

He stepped over the threshold, strode past her, his gaze sweeping over the dark room. Moonlight streamed in through a high bay window, illuminating the hardwood floor with four squares of white. A manservant had prepared a low fire in her personal hearth. The logs glowed a bright orange and cracked in the quiet air.

"Your bath?" he asked suddenly, interrupting the ambience. He gestured to a door on the east wall.

She nodded, unsure of what to do with herself - what to say, how to move. She was a child again.

"You might want to close that," he told her as he went into the adjoining bathroom, his hand sliding along the wall until he reached the light switch.

Shaken, she closed her bedroom door as quietly as possible, looking one more time down the long hall to her parents' wing.

* * *

Excella sat on the very edge of her bed watching him. She was afraid to recline, or sit closer to the pillows at the head - that in and of itself would be too vulgar, too _whorish_ of an invitation for his attention. She was afraid of taking a seat in one of the overstuffed chairs near her fireplace, as it might discourage any advances he could have planned. She feigned a stretch, her arms up over her head, and then she settled back on her elbows. She experimented with arching her spine and thrusting her chest up for effect, but felt she was too posed, and so she shrank back into herself and waited for him.

In a Baroque-framed mirror, under glittering crystal lights, he was admiring himself. He smoothed a stray strand of hair back into place. He washed his hands and dried them on a fancy towel, draped over the edge of her marble sink.

"I'd like to take these out, if you aren't opposed," he said.

She stared at him, confused and wide-eyed.

"The contacts," he clarified.

She shook her head. "Of course."

He produced a little case from a breast pocket and plucked out the lenses - a practiced, careful removal. He screwed the case shut and blinked a few times in the mirror, letting his pupils adjust. He sighed. His eyes seemed disembodied - glowing brightly against the darkness.

Her heart leapt. She sat up straight then, her back stiff with sudden fear. It was so easy to pretend he was only a man when he looked so much the part; when his disguise slipped though, he was _terrifying_. And she had somehow forgotten or romanticized the truth about his nature. She told herself that she was an idiot.

"All the better to see you with…" he said with a grin.

He flicked off the lights in the bathroom and strolled out into her space, in front of the dying fire. He was looking at all of her possessions - his unsettling attention flitting between riding trophies. He stopped to lift up a particularly large ribbon. She saw his lips move as he read it to himself. He set the ribbon back in its place, careful of the long blue ends. He paused in front of her framed diplomas and degrees, starting at the top and working his way down. She watched him - surely, he must have known about all of her academic accomplishments; he knew the layout of her home, after all.

He pointed to one - the Masters of Biochemical Engineering. "You were sixteen when this was awarded?"

"Yes," she croaked out, and felt embarrassed of her voice, her lack of confidence.

He pursed his lips. "Impressive." And then he said, in an uncharacteristically self-deprecating way: "I was a geriatric seventeen years old when I earned my first Masters degree. It would appear… that you have me _beat_."

She frowned, her eyebrows knitting. "Oh no… no, it's really… it was nothing. I went to an easy school, and —"

"Don't do that, Miss Gionne," he commanded. His voice was firm as he turned back to the shelves on her walls. "Don't make yourself small for others' fragile egos."

She swallowed and looked down.

He picked up one of her model horses and studied it. "You've been lied to your entire life." He replaced it and took up another - a palomino, rearing up. "Justified arrogance should be cultivated, just like any other desirable trait." He set the figure back in its spot.

She looked around her bedroom, trying to imagine it through his eyes. The toys she'd played with, the shag rug where she put her feet every morning, the glow-in-the-dark stars she'd begged the housemaid to help her put up on the high ceiling, the canopy over her bed that she used to love. It was like she was living in a time capsule of her childhood, an archaeological dig through her short life. She was suddenly and _acutely_ humiliated by it all. Here he was - a _real_ man, a man of authority, of wealth and aristocracy. He had seen the world, cheated death. And she was a nobody, a nondescript _adolescent_ _girl_ like every other out there, from an only half-way decent family in the countryside of Italy.

He walked the length of the wall, his arms crossed. He turned to her. "You've got quite a few horses on the property, yes?"

She nodded, picking at the afghan blanket folded over the foot of her bed. "Seven."

He moved, nearly _floated_ , to the other side of her bed. She turned with some difficulty, to keep him in her line of vision, trying not to appear anxious. With the tug of a cord, he loosed one side of the canopy. It fell into place - a waterfall of pink. He stared at her through the gauzy material. "Do you breed them? The horses?" he asked, walking around the bed.

Her breath quickened. He moved across the wood floors, as silently as he ever had, until he was standing very near to her. He released the other side of the canopy. She squeezed her thighs together, trapping the scratchy organza between them. "No. Not here."

He sat then, on the foot of her bed. His red gaze found her feet, travelled up over her legs, her body, her face, like a caress. He licked his lips, leaning close to her. He thoughtfully watched her mouth. "Have you ever seen them being bred?"

Her cheeks were hot. She could barely manage a breath. "Yes."

Slowly, he took off his overcoat, folding it over his arm and then laying it on the bed. He smoothed it. "Were they both yours?"

She stared at the wall, lost in the memory. The low flames cast strange dancing shadows. "No. Just the filly. Lucy."

He drew up his knee casually. His eyes went to her fingers, worrying themselves in her lap. "What was that like?" he asked quietly.

She tried to swallow, but her mouth was so dry. "It was… awful."

The logs had burned down to embers and collapsed. She flinched at the sound.

"Why?"

"The breeding team… led the stallion in. He was frantic… kicking his stall, making these… sounds. Lucy… she panicked. But they, um… they bred her anyways. She whinnied the whole time."

"The stallion hurt your Lucy," he said.

"Yes."

He nodded.

They looked at each other.

"Did it make you wet?" he asked.

She stared at him. A moment passed. " _What_?"

Another log collapsed in the hearth, a hundred tiny sparks floating up into the air.

"Did it… make you _wet…_ to see little Lucy get fucked open like that? To hear her cry?" he asked, more slowly.

"You're s-sick," she tripped over her words as she stood up, moved as far as she could from the bed. " _Sei disgustoso_!"

"Am I?" he laughed. "Tell the truth then. Tell me that it didn't make you _drip_ … that you didn't _ache_ between your trembling thighs, watching poor Lucy take that stallion's long, heavy cock…"

She grabbed at the cross resting between her collar bones. Her face was twisted into a mask of disgust and fear. But below, under the skirt of her gown, she _throbbed_. She was wicked and she absolutely throbbed.

"Oh Miss Gionne… All little girls secretly want to be fucked by their horses… It's Freudian psychology one-oh-one," he said matter-of-factly.

 _Why? Why could she not bring herself to kick him out? To demand he leave? Why did she wait? What was she waiting for?_ A thousand warnings fired off in her skull… but she was frozen in place, stuck to the floor… hypnotized by the serpent who was sitting so easily, so _charmingly_ on her bed. She promised herself, right at that moment, that she would scream if he touched her. _She would scream, and the maid would come running, her father would come running… and she would explain to them… she would… convince them, somehow… that she had…_ Her thoughts slowed.

She had invited a man more than twice her age into her bedroom, in the middle of the night.

She asked herself, _again_ , what exactly she had expected.

Already bored with harassing her, he sighed and reached back, picking up her favorite stuffed animal, one of the oldest remnants of her younger self. A red teddy bear in a blue jacket.

"And who is this?" he smiled, disarming.

"Lottie," she whispered, her fingers still clawing at the cross.

"Well… Lottie has seen better days," he mumbled, turning it over, inspecting its fabric. Swaths of fur were missing, worn bare, and an eye had obviously been sewn back on at some point in time. He ran his fingers down the front of the bear and then stopped. He frowned, feeling something.

She held her breath, watching his every move.

He closed his eyes, held the bear up to his nose, and breathed deeply.

Her heart was in her throat.

His cold reptilian gaze was on her then; his pupils were contracted to ominous slits. The playful demeanor, the teasing manner he'd embodied just seconds before had disappeared. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes and she knew her chest and her shoulders heaved with each labored breath she took. The silence between them was deafening, stretching on for what seemed an eternity.

" _Excella_ ," he finally said. "You've rubbed your greedy little cunny on Lottie, haven't you?"


	4. Superhuman Self-Control

_"_ _Years of secret suffering had taught me superhuman self-control."_

 _―_ _Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita_

* * *

" _Excella_ ," he said finally. "You've rubbed your greedy little cunny on Lottie, haven't you?"

She stared at him with enormous dark eyes.

"Cosa?" she asked, breathless.

He held the bear up and shook it. "I can _smell_ you on Lottie. Don't lie to me again." He stood, the stuffed animal still tightly in his clutches. She was like a painting of herself, fixed in place, a fawn in the headlights of a speeding car. Her abasement, her _shame_ , was so intense and complete that it left no room to be offended.

"You lied to me about how aroused you were by the stallion… and now you're going to lie to me about using Lottie as a masturbatory aid," he lectured, mock disbelief in his voice. He punctuated the words _masturbatory aid_ with a narrowing of his fiery eyes.

She took a step back and her heel met with the wall. There was nowhere left to go.

He tossed the bear on the bed, a ridiculing sneer on his face. "Come here."

She hesitated.

"Come here, Miss Gionne. _Right now_ ," he ordered, louder.

Something in her reacted, jumped to attention at his tone. Something dark and dormant, that had been lying in wait for _this_ man, for _this_ moment. Her feet, bare and cold on the floor, moved of their own accord; she felt the disconnect - it was as if he had commanded only her traitorous legs to bring her body to him. She began to cry.

"Oh shhh… you'll be _just_ fine," he said. He mimed a worried countenance, but it read false. In fact, everything about him read false - his tone, his eyes, his body language - it was all a jumbled mess of contradictions. She cried harder, a little sob escaping into the dark bedroom.

"What are we crying about, hmm?" he cooed. "Now, calm down. Look at me." With a single finger, he lifted her chin. She stared up at his face and then squeezed her eyes tightly shut; a tear rolled down her cheek, leaving a trail of black eyeliner and mascara. She was trying very hard to be brave. "What is it?" he asked, the concern in his voice almost believable when she couldn't see him.

"Don't hurt me," she blurted out.

His eyes grew wide with surprise. "Hurt you?"

Her bottom lip quivered.

"I'm not even going to touch you, Miss Gionne." His hands dropped behind his back. "See?" he taunted through a wicked smile. " _Scout's honor._ "

She stepped away, wiped her face, barely able to raise her eyes from the floor in her embarrassment. "What… what do you want?"

He took a seat in one of the heavy wingback chairs near the fireplace. He watched her, his long legs crossed, his foot drawing slow circles in the air as he studied her. "Show me how you… _play_ with Lottie, Excella."

She swallowed.

He rested his chin in his hand and sighed, an almost dreamy expression on his face. His smirk hadn't budged.

"Play?" she asked, her voice barely audible.

"Yes." He relaxed into the deep velvet cushions, as if he were anticipating a performance, as if they were still at the opera. "It's what you want too, isn't it? To show me how you play at night."

She didn't reply but stood dumbly near the foot of her childhood bed, the canopy drawn on either side, framing her trembling body like a still from a movie.

"You _would_. You'd like to show me." His voice poured over her like honey.

There were… things _happening_ to her - to her mind and her body - that she had only a scientific understanding of. Her interest in engaging with another human being on a sexual level was, at best, mild. She knew by rout, of course, the details, the _ins_ and _outs_ , of true arousal - arousal which came from an external source and not from within. There were things that drove her to touch herself: images and descriptions, pornography and erotica. But it had all been internal, a sort of story she told in her private mind, dialogues she'd made up and perfected and brought out whenever she needed release. Although no one had touched her before. No one had whispered obscene things to her, no one had made her hips roll of their own accord. Until that night.

It was pure hell and unadulterated heaven - all at once - as she felt she must be dripping through the bright organza.

She knew he could sense her readiness and fear. His face, so beautiful and serene, had changed. His upper lip curled, exposing his teeth. His breathing, once so controlled, had become erratic and shallow. She could hear him from where she stood; she could almost _see_ the beating of his heart through his clothes.

And she recognized it immediately - the _Flehmen Response_.

Her heart pounded in her rib cage.

He was _scenting_ her.

After several agonizing seconds, he blinked, and his disorientation cleared. He took a deep breath. "Do you leave your panties on, or do you take them off so you can feel Lottie's fur splitting your lips?"

Her stomach lurched. Another tear carved a beautiful black rivulet down her other cheek.

" _Ohh…_ " He smiled again, knowingly. "You _do_ take them off. You like that, don't you? Lottie's stiff fur, rubbing your little pink cunt until it's _raw_ …"

"Stop, please!" she sobbed.

"Show me, Excella. Show me and I'll stop," he growled.

"What do you want?" Her voice was strained, desperate.

"Take off your panties."

She stared at him, in the squares of white moonlight, and she wept. He only watched her, as removed from her suffering as the statues of gods she'd seen years ago in Rome. He ran his fingers over his lips, contemplative.

Her shaking hands reached up under the gown; she struggled to keep the hem of it low, so that he wouldn't see her nakedness. Her fingers looped into the elastic of the band at her waist, tugged and wiggled the tiny pair of bikini-cut panties down her goosebumped thighs, over her wobbling knees, to her slender ankles, where she stepped out of them. A dark tear fell on the organza.

" _Good girl_ … Now bring them to me," he purred.

She cringed, a scolded child, and reached out.

"Closer," he teased.

She took a few tentative steps towards him. He opened his hand. She practically tossed the pair of panties at him, wrenching her arm back as if he was liable to bite her.

His smile faded; he shook his head. He felt the silky material with his fingertips, his eyes on her the entire time. Seconds ticked by like hours. She wanted to run from the game he was playing with her, run as fast and as far as she could. She wanted to disappear and never return.

She also _needed_ him to look at her with the approval and fascination he had the night that they had met. She _needed_ him to desire her, above all others. Albert Wesker was different - he was unique among men, like the shock of diving into cold water, like a bolt of lightning striking across a gray sky.

If he chose her, if he wanted her… she _knew_ she would be complete.

"You're soaking wet, Excella," he said then, the panties balled up in his fist. "You've… ruined these."

She saw his jaw tighten, his entire being seeming to vie against itself for control.

"What an indecent little _filly_ you are," he said through clenched teeth. His voice betrayed him; it was almost choked with need. "Get on the bed."

She turned without protest - defeated, afraid, but somehow vindicated. She climbed up, over the folded afghan blanket and the pillowy comforter.

"I think it's best if you show me exactly what you're doing at night."

She knelt on her gown, felt her own weight tugging at the bodice, her breasts crushed together and against the fabric; she was light-headed and nauseous. She felt the cold plastic nose of the infernal bear. She couldn't swallow, couldn't remember the last time she had swallowed - everything was so hot and dry, except for her treasonous slit which dripped steadily, maddeningly.

"Let me see Lottie, between your legs," he fairly panted.

She slowly pulled the organza up, peeled the seemingly endless layers of pink and orange, over her knees and even further, to the very apex of her splayed thighs.

"That's enough," he said, and she realized then that what he couldn't see excited him just as much as what he could. Her hands stopped just below her most secret place, her modesty curiously more sullied by _that_ than if she'd revealed everything to his hungry gaze.

His eyes volleyed between her open thighs and her face, searching her reactions; her arousal, her degradation, her reluctance. Her poor cheeks burned with it all. A humiliating sheen of sweat broke out on her brow, her upper lip. Her pussy touched the cold little nose again and she flinched.

"Do you use poor Lottie's _face_ , Excella?"

She exhaled, her back arching like a cat's as she tried to hold the position he'd demanded.

"Do you imagine a tongue… lapping up your juices? Dipping inside, stretching you?"

She mewled; her thighs trembled with her effort.

"Can you hear the _sound_ at night, in your mind? A mouth, on your wet, ripe cunt? Like eating a peach," he continued ruthlessly. "Do you… imagine it's me? My mouth sucking your sweet little girl place?"

She tossed her head back then, her dark hair spilling over her bare shoulders… and she gave in. She rolled her hips, the agonizing and familiar contact making her moan. The bear's fat little snout spread her slick lips and the short, cruel fur rasped along her flesh. She blinked once, dizzy and weak, and then let her eyes close. The dark image of him, watching her, was burned into her eyelids. She began to move, oblivious to anything else but the ache between her legs.

He shifted in the chair, the fingertips of one hand passing over his lips again and again while the other hand rubbed and worried at the wet panties. Her body undulated slowly, in time to some silent, primitive beat. His own hips seemed to anticipate the lazy roll of hers; his thighs tensing and releasing with each of her thrusts against the bear. The silence in the room almost hurt - only the sound of her heavy breaths and the popping of the logs in the fireplace disturbed the night air.

She laid down, pressing her blushing-hot chest against the cold mattress, her face buried in the comforter so that it might cool her burning skin. She butterflied herself open on top of the bear, trying to gore her needy slit on its wet black nose. She pushed and rubbed against the blunt nose, trying to force it into her virginal hole, but it was too small and flat to satisfy the throbbing void that controlled her every move. She ground against Lottie, _desperate_ then, and her breath came out in quiet, uneven gasps. Under the dozen layers of organza, the soft curve of her ass rose and fell as she fucked herself on the stuffed animal. Each hunch of her hips was faster and wilder than the last, until her frustration reduced her to keening helplessly into the mattress.

"Do not finish, Excella," he said.

She obeyed, her knuckles white as she clawed at the downy comforter. Her body heaved with her exhaustion and her face was a telling shade of pink. She turned so that she could see him over the mound of blankets she'd made a mess of in her agony. She was a disaster of dark hair and kohl-rimmed eyes, staring up at her tormentor.

He licked his lips and seemed to think carefully about his words. "That was… _disgusting_."

She closed her eyes. _What_ was _she doing? He was right. She was disgusting. An animal, a beast of a girl. What had she just done?_ _She wanted the earth to crack open and swallow her whole. She wanted —_

"Come here." His right hand still rubbed leisurely at the panties.

Dejected, humiliated, _on fire_ , she eased off the stuffed bear and crawled to the edge of the bed. The slippery fur caught the light of the moon still streaming in from the great windows. She stood on shaking legs and pushed her tangled mane out of her reddened face, keeping her eyes steadfastly on the wood floor. She felt every bit a child in a woman's body.

"Come here, and don't make me ask again," he warned. His long legs spidered out as he sprawled in the wingback chair, one foot tapping impatiently.

Slowly, she found her way across the room to him, her feet barely touching the old Turkish rug, barely feeling the cold creaking floor, until she was there, in front of him. Unblinking, she watched the toe of his beautiful lacquered shoe, hypnotized by it.

He snapped his fingers. She looked up, jarred back to his reality. He nodded to his left leg.

She cleared her throat, afraid to hear her own voice. "… Where?"

"Right here," he said, the smile returning to his lips as he patted his thigh.

She pulled her long hair over one shoulder and combed nervously through the ends. "You promised —"

" _Of course_ ," he grinned, holding his hands up, a gesture of innocence. "I won't lay a finger on you."

Skittish and halting, she sat daintily on his thigh, tucking the gown under herself. She remembered sitting in Santa Claus's lap over the Christmas she had spent in New York City as a child. She tried to imagine that it was just like _that_ \- that she wasn't in the lap of a monster, a man who may or may not have murdered his friends, a man who might be planning her murder at that very moment.

"No," he said, his permanent smile unsettling her even more. " _Between_ your legs, hmm?"

She stood again, her hands fussed with the the skirt, fumbling. She lifted the hem.

He motioned for her to come closer, to take his thigh between hers. His eyes grew brighter in the darkness. She could smell his cologne - something strong and heady, it wreaked havoc on her senses, became the only thing she could focus on. He smelled like a bon fire, like the woods and cold rain. It wasn't real… nothing was real.

If nothing was real… nothing mattered. _Nothing but what she was doing._

She didn't know what to do with her arms, with her hands, so she put her palms to his heated chest to steady herself as she mounted him, like she had Lottie. And when she finally, _mercifully_ pressed her silken cunt to his thigh, they both gasped. His long pale fingers dug into the arms of the chair and the panties slipped to the floor, forgotten. They stared at each other; they were electric.

"Now… show me again," he whispered, and she thought she could hear his voice tremble.

She rolled her hips, just once, and was rewarded with his sharp breath. Her eyes, wide and uncertain, were on his thigh, at the juncture of her own. The organza was bunched up around her hips and the length of her legs was exposed to the still, cold air. She moved again, her back painfully arched.

He sat up, leaned towards her as she worked him, his face inches from hers. She felt his hot breath fan over her sensitized skin. The cologne was truly overpowering - drowning out everything but _him_ and the rapacious apex of her thighs. His eyes searched hers, the startling elliptical pupils blown out, nearly eclipsing the red and gold of his glittering irises in his arousal.

The bones in his elegant hands showed white through his skin. "You won't see that boy again, Excella… you won't see _anyone_ but me." His chest rose and fell with his labored breathing; she felt his pounding heart, inhumanly strong and fast, just under her palms. "You're mine now."

"Yes," she sighed.

"I can feel you… your cunt is just _sopping_ …"

She winced at his words, but her hips continued to pump, wetting the leg of his expensive pants. She whimpered.

"I'm going to ruin your insides," he continued. "I haven't thought of anything else but impaling you since the night we met… I'm going to destroy you and you'll beg me to do it."

She moaned, her mouth slack, her eyes closed tight as her entire body quivered and vibrated and pleaded for release.

"You've never even kissed a boy, have you, _little girl_? Never let a boy touch your soft parts."

She twitched, on the verge of orgasm, like a tremor before an earthquake.

"Soon… very soon, I'm going to make you bleed," he whispered, and it was like a song.

Her hand slipped down his chest, brushed against his erect cock, straining at the zipper of his pants. Shocked from her daze, she jerked her hand away and stared at him, panting.

"Oh, there's no rules against _that_ ," he said, smiling.

She sat back, unsure, pulled halfway out of her reverie.

"You can touch me… I won't bite you… not tonight." He laughed, deep and low.

She wavered, a thousand voices arguing in her pleasure-addled brain. Before she could make the decision herself, he had her wrist in his hand, and he guided it to himself. He held her there, pressed tight to his hardness. She gasped at the feel of him - _it was unnatural_ , she thought. As rigid as a bone, savagely thick. It jumped under her hand, alive and strangely autonomous - as monstrous as the rest of him. She yelped and it made him smile all the more horribly.

"Keep going, Excella," he said, barely restrained desperation in his voice. "Hold onto me. Just like riding, isn't it? That's good."

She rubbed her poor pussy along him, the lips of her sex swollen and sore and spreading like the petals of a wet flower. Her fingers, wrapped around his girth, squeezed gently as the tension in her reached a critical peak. His right cheek dimpled when he smiled and groaned, his head thrown back in pleasure. She felt him seeping through the fine material of his pants - _pre-ejaculate_. Her fingers were sticky with it. She barely resisted the urge to suck them clean, to taste him.

"Look what you've done. Both of us now, hmm?" he breathed. She humped his thigh harder, crying softly in his ear. He put his hand over her mouth, silencing her. She dragged in a breath through her nose and felt the terrible heat of his flesh on her chilled skin.

"Be a good girl… show me how you cum. My beautiful, good little girl… You're mine now… my little girl… Shhh…"

His words, his hands, were a noose of ecstasy. The effect was instantaneous - her body went stiff as she sailed over the edge. Her legs tightened around his, tangling and holding fast, like a vice. She writhed on him, a girl possessed. She couldn't breathe, didn't want to breathe.

Through the haze of climax, she could hear only his voice.

"That's it," he murmured, so close to her ear. He _hushed_ her again, his fingers tightened over her mouth, trapping her moans. "Let go… let go…"

* * *

She shivered with the aftershocks of spent pleasure. Her body was limp in his arms, the electric current that had run through her, through _them_ , had dissipated, gone out, leaving her as lifeless as a doll. With her face pressed to the curve between his shoulder and neck, she listened to him hum, felt the vibrations of his song in the column of his throat. She breathed in his cologne again, wanting to memorize the scent, every note, so that she might remember it _exactly_ when she was falling asleep at night. Her eyelids were heavy and kept closing on their own; she fought on against her lethargy valiantly, but she was losing, slipping in and out of a light slumber.

He stroked her hair, stopping at the ends, winding it around his fingers, over and over. She shifted on his thigh, the cold spot she'd left behind growing uncomfortable.

"I must take my leave, Miss Gionne," he said softly.

She closed her eyes, tried her best to ignore what was coming. She knew though, that the clock had struck midnight long ago on her fairytale evening. Slowly, reluctantly, she pushed herself off his chest and managed to stand with his steadying hand.

He stood too, looked down at her, his arms crossed. One side of his mouth turned up in an amused and tender smile. "Tired young ladies should go to sleep," he teased.

She rubbed her eyes, her knuckles smudged with black. "Will… when will I see you?"

He shrugged, glancing around her room again, as if committing every bit of it to memory. "Someday."

She frowned. "Are you with Tricell?" A franticness in her worked up to bursting as she watched him prepare to walk away from her again.

"I might be," he replied, as cryptic as she'd come to expect from their brief encounters.

"Will we work together?" she asked, following him.

"It's a possibility," he said casually. "I'm leaving the country soon."

Her heart stopped. "To go where?"

"Africa."

" _Africa_?" she repeated, but he didn't respond.

He picked his coat up off the end of her bed and then pulled it on - a smooth, fluid motion. He adjusted the collar and straightened the cuffs, his gaze on the red teddy bear all the while. He turned to her over his shoulder. "Would I be imposing if I… took your _friend_ with me?"

She looked confused. "The bear? Wha… why would you take… a toy?"

"I'm going to gut Lottie and then fuck her at night while I think of you," he said, quite seriously.

She took a step back, her mouth open in shock. She felt as if she'd been smacked.

"I'm joking, Excella… relax," he smiled, the bear already in his hand. He looked at it, his eyes narrowing at the embarrassing stripe of secretion down it's front. He pursed his lips, playful. "Perhaps I'm not joking."

He strode to her bay windows, feeling up the pane until he touched the lock. He pulled the lever and the tall window swung into her bedroom. An icy blast of air ruffled the pink canopy, ruffled the skirt of her gown. She wrapped her arms around herself.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm leaving." He stepped up on the window seat.

"How? Let me walk you out, please," she said, panic rising in her voice. The fall from her room was nothing to scoff at. Images of him lying on the pavers, both legs broken, flashed before her.

"This is fine." He looked back at her. He nodded. "I trust you'll sleep well... _little girl_."

And then he was gone, leaving only a trail of footprints across the rolling lawn, through the new snow.


	5. You Can Always Count On A Murderer

_"_ _You can alway count on a murderer for a fancy prose style."_

 _\- Vladamir Nobakov, Lolita_

* * *

Monday morning came much too soon.

"Miss Gionne."

She turned over on the leather seat, curling up under her lab coat.

"Miss Gionne, we've arrived," the driver tried again.

She didn't move.

Somewhere, far away, she heard the passenger's side door to the backseat open. Frigid winter air and blinding sunlight poured over her. She grimaced, like she'd tasted something bitter, and shielded her eyes.

"You're at work."

Sighing, she sat up and raked her hands through her unwashed hair, pulling it back in a messy bun.

"I'll be here to pick you up at five, Miss," he said as she stepped out of the car. He smiled at her but she couldn't manage to return it.

She nodded instead and pulled the coat around her shoulders, taking the steps up to her building, as slowly as possible. Like every other weekday, the driver waited until she passed the Tricell Laboratories Incorporated sign and ducked into glass tower. She heard the car pull away and felt, for whatever reason, that she wanted to cry.

* * *

Around ten in the morning, she walked down a busy hallway, her laptop hugged tight to her chest. She was counting the squares of tile to her cubicle when a hand shot out and grabbed her arm. She stumbled as she was yanked back, almost dropping the company laptop.

She whipped around to face her assailant.

"Excella! What the _fuck_ happened on Friday night?" Arianna hissed. Her auburn hair fell over her shoulder, perfect and shining in the same awful light that washed out Excella's skin and made her own hair look brittle.

She wrenched out of Arianna's cold grasp. "Nothing," she said, frowning. The memory of Lottie flashed before her. She swallowed against the lump in her throat.

"Nothing, my ass!" Arianna laughed.

A suit from accounting brushed past as they stood in the middle of the hall on the third floor. Both of them saw the way he looked Arianna up and down, his head almost turning to take her in. She looked at him with more than a little interest, pausing in the conversation long enough to make that point.

"What did Caleb do to you?" she whispered, leaning close.

Excella stammered. "I… nothing! We just… went to the opera. I told you we were going." She looked around, clinging to the laptop like a life preserver. "Why?" She couldn't resist asking, her curiosity piqued.

"You're serious right now?" Arianna put her hands on her hips. Excella noticed that even the shapeless white lab coat seemed to accentuate her co-worker's figure. It made her sick.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she relented, growing tired of the game. Arianna stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

"Caleb was _fired_ this weekend."

Excella gawked at her. "What?"

" _Yes_." Arianna's eyebrows were arched high with such alarm, it was almost comical. "Fired."

She leaned against the wall. " _What?_ "

"Everyone is saying it was you. That you pulled strings," Arianna chattered on. "I've been defending you all morning, I swear to _God_. They're all such vultures." She rolled her eyes for emphasis.

"It wasn't me though!" Excella tried.

"Well, I know _that_ , Topo." There was an edge to her voice - a sort of doubting sarcasm. _You wouldn't be capable of something so clever_ , she seemed to say.

"Fired…" Excella kept returning to the word.

"Yeah, I mean, can you imagine? His career is _definitely_ shot to hell, getting fired from Tricell. His family is super rich though, so…," she continued, mindlessly.

Excella gnawed at the inside of her cheek. She stared at the squares of linoleum tile. Everything felt surreal for a few moments.

"Oh! And you heard about the Mikhail Ulgov, right? The supervisor from R and D? He was at the opera - you were there! Well, he _died_. In the men's room. They found him in a stall, blood everywhere. Isn't that _awful_?"

The laptop slipped from Excella's grasp, almost dropping to the floor. Both of them lunged to catch it before it broke into a hundred plastic pieces. It fumbled between them before Arianna steadied her.

"I know… completely horrifying, right? And apparently —" she glanced around and pressed up against Excella's side, conspiratorially. " _Apparently_ … Tricell is totally downplaying the whole thing… like, really hush-hush. People are saying he contracted something bad in the lab… It's _crazy_."

Excella's eyes were saucers. She tried to speak, but found she couldn't - the words themselves were lodged in her throat, choking her.

Arianna suddenly pulled away; a look of revelation came over her face. "Oh my God. You don't… you don't think… Not _Caleb_. You don't think Caleb had something to do with it, do you?"

Excella turned to her. She thought of Albert Wesker showing up after intermission, and his rodent-like Irving, so casually wiping blood off of his shoe. She thought of the police on the first floor, and running down the corridors of the opera house. Her heart raced - she'd known underneath what he _really_ was, hadn't she?

 _Hadn't she?_

"I can't… no," she finally said, unsure of who she was actually talking about.

"That's insane, right? It can't be connected," Arianna sighed. "But he _was_ fired…"

Excella held her breath. Something slick and ugly roiled in her stomach. And then a voice, not her own… a _new_ voice, seemed to speak for her. "You know… Caleb told me he hated Ulgov." The lie, black and sticky and repulsive, was out before she had a chance to think. "I can't imagine he'd… you know, _do_ anything about it though," she said, her voice shaky.

Arianna stared at her. She was silent, _for once in her goddamn life_.

"It will be okay… they'll find out what happened to that poor man… I'm sure," Excella said, trying to smile, and then trying not to smile. A cold sweat broke out on her back.

* * *

Three weeks passed.

Three terribly predictable, terribly aching weeks.

She tried to forget him.

And she found that was impossible. He was there, _always_. Two glittering red eyes in the dark. A worm in her brain, corkscrewing deeper with every hour, every minute that passed between them.

Her hunter's hooves beat an urgent tattoo in the wet, half-frozen dirt of the field. His flanks were bellows, the hot rush from his great lungs hanging like mist in the cold morning air. It was their fourth lap around the edge of the villa's property.

 _Albert Wesker had forgotten her._

"Haw!" She yelled. The horse turned at her command, keeping up his gallop between her thighs. They skirted the shrub line, the sharp, leaf-less branches scraping at her legs, at the horse's side.

 _He'd used her._

The gallop wasn't fast enough - _nothing_ was fast enough. It would never be fast enough to forget him, to forget what she'd done that night.

 _He was laughing at her._

She brought the riding crop down as hard as she could; the animal rocketed across the field, dirt and dead grass flying up in his wake.

 _He was laughing at her and she was an idiot._

She whipped the poor beast again and again, lashing at it's hips, her heels digging cruelly into it's sides. The horse drove on through her strange abuse, frightened by her sudden violence.

The crop sliced through the air, whistling on the way down to the horse's haunches. It heaved great plumes of hot breath then, like a dragon; it pounded the cold, dead ground at a relentless pace, each hoof barely making a distinct sound.

Excella, didn't hear any of it.

She only heard Albert Wesker's laughter echoing.

* * *

She knew something was amiss as she walked up the gravel path to the house, the crop still tight in her fist. The air felt _odd_ , as if it had just been disturbed or violated or cut in two. No birds sang in the skeletal trees, despite the mild weather; no squirrels bounded across the frosty lawn, as they had the day before. It was entirely still, even as the bright yellow sun swam in the stark white sky.

Her gait slowed.

There was a fire engine red Ferrari parked near the garage in the u-shaped driveway.

A friend of her father's perhaps.

But… he had gone into Florence that morning.

And she'd never known her mother to have any friends - certainly not friends who would stop by on a Saturday morning in the middle of winter in a race car.

She walked up cautiously and peered into the driver's side. The windows were tinted dark, making the glass a sort of mirror in the bleak January daylight. There was nothing of note; a pair of leather gloves on the passenger's seat, a book under them, the cover hidden from view. She frowned and went to the rear of the gaudy car to inspect the license.

It too was typical - nothing unique.

She stared up at the house.

* * *

Her mother's grating voice was amplified in the foyer's vaulted ceiling. She was cackling about something. The raucous noise ricocheted off the walls and made Excella grit her teeth. She stepped slowly, carefully on the marble tiles in the entryway, trying hard not to make a sound in her riding boots. Her mother carried on to whomever was in the dining room with her.

"Oh _stop_!" she teased, a grotesquely flirtatious version of herself.

Excella felt the stirrings of maternal fury, blooming in her body, her muscles rigid with it.

A man's voice murmured something that unintelligible, but it sent her mother back into hysterics.

Excella shook her head. She envisioned, briefly, taking the riding crop to her mother's hideous Tiffany vase on the table just inside the great French doors. It would have been supremely satisfying to watch it crash to the floor, break into a million horrible gilt pieces. She took a deep breath and tried to right herself. Her chest was tight with silent rage.

The door behind her was caught by the wind and slammed shut. She jumped.

"Excella? Darling, is that you?" her mother called in a tone so rehearsed it hurt her ears.

She cursed, her hands balled into little fists.

"Excella… someone's come to see you, my love." Her stiletto heels click-clacked across the hallway, to the foyer, where her daughter stood shaking with anger. As she came closer, teetering clumsily in her ridiculous Louis Vuittons, she glanced back at the dining room. She motioned to Excella, appearing exactly as unnerved and hurried as she had sounded.

"Who is it?" Excella demanded.

Her mother cast another nervous look in the direction of their mysterious company. "Be right back!" she called out, and then, in terror, she took Excella by the arm. "Look at me," she hissed. Excella balked, trying to escape her mother's attentions. "Stop it!" her mother whispered. "Hold still, and take that helmet off, right now!" She licked her thumb and began to rub at Excella's cheek, smudging away some imaginary dirt. "Let me see your hair! Quickly! We need to fix it!"

"Let go!" Excella struggled against her. "What's gotten into you?!" She yanked away from her mother and glared, undoing the strap of her riding helmet. "Who's here?"

"Someone very important… listen to me —" she grabbed Excella's chin and spoke very quietly. "Listen to me… you must do anything this man says… anything at all. He has the ability to make or break you. Do you understand?"

"Who is _here_?" Excella asked again, more loudly.

" _I'm_ here," came a baritone voice from behind them.

Her mother's panicked eyes darted up.

Excella whipped around.

Albert Wesker stood in the arched doorway, one hand in his pocket, and a cup of tea in the other.

He took a sip before smiling mildly at them.

* * *

"I cannot get over how much you resemble your mother, Miss Gionne. It's absolutely stunning." He stirred his second cup of tea while he spoke; a little brown cube of turbinado sugar tinkled against the fine china.

"I'm told that we look like sisters," her mother said. She ran a hand over her hair coquettishly. "Isn't that right, Excella?"

Excella, slumped in a formal dining chair, only stared at her.

"Oh, but it's true… You don't look a day over twenty-six," Wesker agreed. He tilted his head and studied her mother, who blushed under his false blue gaze. "The both of you… so beautiful. Too many good genes for one family. It's simply unfair to the rest of us."

Excella rolled her eyes. Her mother laughed - a forced sound, like a stage actor.

Wesker picked up the teapot and poured another dainty cup with a steady hand. "If you would, Madame Gionne," he said, his tone as pleasant as Excella had ever heard it. He gestured to the little sugar bowl, the steam from the cup he'd just poured curling up into the air. Her mother, so enraptured by him that her hungry eyes and her awful smile never wavered, pushed the sugar close.

He made another cup exactly like his own and then presented it to Excella.

She hated sugar in her tea - abhorred it. But for _him_... She took a tentative sip, pushing back against the urge to grimace. He watched her and she prayed that he approved.

Her mother cleared her throat and smoothed the cloth napkin draped over her thighs. "Excella, dear… Dr. Wesker told me about Caleb Bianchi."

Excella started. She swallowed. _What about Caleb Bianchi?_ An image of him lying dead in a gutter sparked in her mind. "I don't… I don't know what you're talking about."

Her mother stared at her expectantly. She raised a knowing eyebrow, her expression a mix of feigned pity and accusation.

For several seconds, they all seemed to be waiting.

Wesker's fingertips strummed the table top.

Excella finally turned to him. "What… about Caleb?"

"Surely you recall spurning his advances at the opera, yes?" Wesker asked. "And my having to intercede, of course, when he grew… _aggressive_."

Excella stared at him.

Wesker finished the cup of tea and played with the edge of the tiny white saucer. "I apologize, if I've embarrassed you, Miss Gionne. I felt, though, that I had to tell your mother why a middle-aged man dropped their lovely daughter off that evening."

Excella's mother reached across the table and put her hand over his. "Dr. Wesker… you have nothing to explain." There were stars in her eyes. "I'm just so grateful you were there."

"I absolutely could not let one of the most… _promising_ scientists be abused so crudely. Mr. Bianchi has been relieved of his duties. The board didn't stand for it when I brought his behavior to their attention." Wesker slowly, almost imperceptibly removed himself from under her mother's cloying touch. Excella watched the exchange.

"Thank you so very much, Dr. Wesker," her mother sighed. She put a hand to her chest, just above her heart, much too close to her décolletage to be accidental. "I don't know what I would have done if…"

Wesker shook his head, frowning. "No. Let's not even think on it." He looked at Excella then, his eyes seeming to bore through her. "Your daughter is the jewel of Tricell. She's to be protected at all costs."

There was a loaded silence between the three of them.

"Which brings me to the reason for my visit…" Wesker leaned back in his chair. He smiled - calm, sure.

Excella's mother made a little appreciative sound, returning the smile from behind the rim of her teacup. Excella stared at the her, at the smudges of garish red lipstick on the bone-white china. She looked away, disgusted.

"I would like to extend an offer to you, Miss Gionne," he announced. "There's an open position on my team, in Kijuju, Africa. Biochemical division. Level three Administrator."

Across the table, her mother was giddy with pride. She fidgeted in her seat, smiling that ridiculous, knowing smile at her. She nodded to Excella, as if it were a done deal, as if the choice had been decided behind her back. _She must have known - Wesker must have told her before she'd come in from riding. They'd been talking about her, about her future… as if she wasn't even there._

Excella looked at Wesker, licked her lips nervously. "I'm… how exactly am I qualified… for this?"

Wesker's easy smile didn't crack. "You're qualified because I _say_ that you're qualified." He paused. "Perhaps I've misrepresented my association with Tricell Incorporated. As you know, I'm somewhat… _deceased_ … on paper. Very unfortunate business which I'm certain you've heard terrible, untrue rumors about. But until recently, it was actually convenient for me to remain dead." He nodded to her mother, who nodded back as if it wasn't completely insane. Excella's eyes grew wider, more concerned, with each passing second. "Tricell has been eager to work with me since my Umbrella days… and when I finally did join, the board awarded me free reign of a satellite lab of my choosing. I'm recruiting the best and brightest talent from around the world… as we speak."

Excella held her breath.

"And I knew, without a doubt, that our goals aligned from the very first time I met you," he continued, as if to draw something out of her.

Excella blinked. _Our goals?_

"Excella is quite passionate about eradicating _Filoviridae_ ," he said to her mother, saving the both of them before suspicions were raised. "She spoke so eloquently on it that night at the opera, I almost couldn't believe my luck. Truly."

Excella took another sip of her tea. Her hand shook; she prayed he didn't take notice. The saucer rattled on the table when she set the cup down.

Her mother stared her down. "Well… what do you say, my love?" Her tone was anxious.

Excella swallowed. Her throat felt as if it was closing.

"Excella… _dear_ … you should give Dr. Wesker an answer. He's been so kind and patient with you. Don't be rude." Her voice grew colder, more demanding.

Wesker nonchalantly waved away her mother's badgering. He turned to Excella, the unnatural smile still plastered on his mouth. "You hesitate. I understand. Kijuju is a long way from Florence. And while I can assure you that I would handle every detail of the transition… take you _completely_ under my wing… I know the decision is yours."

Excella's heart raced. In her lap, her hands twisted and wound the cloth napkin. "May I…" she began, her voice weak. "May I have a few days… to think it through?"

Wesker mimed false exasperation, appearing to be unbothered. "Miss Gionne… _of course_." She wondered, briefly, if he might kill her for her resistance.

Excella's mother sat up straight; her vicarious glee was gone. She pursed her lips and then opened her mouth, as if to object.

Before she could interrupt them again, Wesker cut in. "Why don't _you_ —" he said pointedly to Excella. "Show me the little horse you mentioned, hmm? Lucy, wasn't it?" He watched her flinch at the name, his wolfish grin growing ever more toothy. "Yes. _Lucy_. I'd love to meet her."

* * *

They walked together, down the stone garden steps and out onto the open expanse of dead lawn. Wesker trailed closely behind her, his hands in his pockets, his heat like a wall at her back on the cold morning. She swore she could _feel_ him smiling. She stuck the riding crop through one of her belt loops and crossed her arms.

"I'm taking _excellent_ care of Lottie…" he said.

She didn't turn to him, but sighed and picked up her pace. She tried to widen the space between them, but he wouldn't allow it - for every move she made, his were attuned and matched.

"In case you were wondering," he added, and she could _definitely_ hear the infamous, gloating smile then.

The barn came into view as they crested the hill to her parents' villa.

She continued on down a worn path and realized, halfway into the little valley, that he wasn't behind her anymore. She turned and looked up into the bright white sky, shading her eyes with her hand. He was standing under a stone pine watching her from above.

"What?" she asked impatiently.

"It's beautiful here," he said, ignoring the agitation in her voice. His hawkish gaze swept over the landscape - her parents' grounds, the squares of hibernating grass like the patches of a great quilt, and the neighbors's line of spindly, close-knit cypress trees just at the property's edge. "I want this," he said, his hands still in his fine pockets. His face grew quite serious and his eyes returned to her. "I want all of this."

Excella shivered and took a deep, cold breath. "The stable is this way, Dr. Wesker."

* * *

The barn was unusually quiet when they walked through the main gate. The horses swished their tails lazily, nibbled at bales of alfalfa in their stalls, stood close to the glowing heaters her stable master had set up in preparation for frigid, colorless days. The muscles of her hunter's thorax twitched under his silky brown coat, as if he was shaking off flies in the summer time. Other than the occasional _jangle_ of a bit, the soft shuffle of hooves in the hay, there was no sound.

Wesker plucked the riding crop from her belt. She jumped at the contact and took several steps away, her eyes narrowing. He weighed it in his hands, his long pale fingers tracing it to the looped tip.

She traced the pocked wood of a stall door, nervous as she watched him play with the crop.

"What a lovely tool," he said.

She watched the crop, his hands. She swallowed hard. "You've certainly got my mother fooled."

He snapped the crop down, against his own thigh - _hard_. She flinched, knowing the welt it would leave behind. He only nodded though, flexing and bowing the crop between his hands. "Beautiful," he said. He turned to her, seeming unconcerned with the pain she knew must be radiating from his leg. "As for your mother…" he considered it for a moment. "Fooling old _whores_ isn't exactly an accomplishment." He shrugged, the corners of his mouth turning down in a decidedly unimpressed way.

She stared at him, her heart thundering in her chest.

He chuckled, and used the crop like a golf club - lining up to an imaginary ball, and then taking and imaginary swing, his posture and turn textbook perfection. "Don't act surprised. You know as well as I do, _Excella_ …" he said, the crop held over his shoulder like a wedge. "That she would have sucked me off under the table if I'd only asked."

"You're a piece of shit," she said, nearly slipping into Italian.

He swung again and then his eyes were on her.

Her stomach dropped.

"Am I?" His expression was blank, allowing her to fill in all the horrifying gaps.

She crossed her arms, her back rigid with fear. _She should not have said that, not at all. She had no choice but to stand her ground._

"Because I'm right about your mother?" he asked, casually. "Is that why I'm a… piece of shit?"

She touched her messy hair, her hand shaking.

"Look at you," he mocked, his brutish eyes taking her in, knowing her, _feeling_ her. "You're very upset, aren't you?" He smiled proudly.

"I hate you," she growled.

He was very still for several seconds, their eyes locked in a battle of wills. And then a laugh burst from his chest, up his throat. It echoed from the high roof, raining _humiliation_ and _helplessness_ over her. Her jaw was clenched so tightly she thought it might crack.

"I hate you," she repeated, more for herself than for him.

He shook his head, his laughter trailing off. He looked over her horses, tapping the crop against the barn posts as he sauntered down the aisle.

"Which one is Little Lucy?" he asked. He clasped his hands behind his back, as he always did. She saw the way the crop seemed natural to him. It made her very nervous.

"Second to last on the left."

"The brown quarter horse? With the white star on her face?"

"Yes," she ground out.

"She _is_ quite small, isn't she? Poor, poor Lucy. Can she still feel it, I wonder? Does she remember the stallion?" He paused. "You were riding her this morning?"

She sighed. "No. The gelding, third stall, on the right."

He walked backward until he stood in front of her hunter.

"He's a fast horse," he commented, benignly.

"He is, yes."

"Your favorite?"

"Yes."

He nodded. "Of course. The castrated male. How adorably predictable of you," he taunted.

She rolled her eyes.

"I meant it though," he said, his tone, his stance, suddenly different. He was open, almost… _gentle_.

"Meant _what_?" She bristled, preparing for the next assault. Her nostrils flared, her teeth ground together.

"You're beautiful."

She looked away, her body feeling as if it was folding in on itself. There was a heat in her face then, and she was certain he saw it. Her poor heart, beating so hard and painfully only seconds before, skipped beats, tripping over itself. It wasn't fair - what he did to her. It was cruel.

"I think of you," he said. He leaned on a stall door and watched her. "I think of nothing else."

"You didn't contact me."

"I couldn't." He picked at the end of the crop lazily.

"You made —" she stopped short. The chilly air pricked at her flushed skin. He raised a pale eyebrow, expectant. "You made me do _things_ and I never heard from you," she said, her voice low.

"I was preparing for us."

"Preparing?" she asked, incredulous.

"Setting events in motion… securing a home." He smiled. "We can't just _go_ to Africa, Excella."

"I don't even know if I want to go," she reminded him.

He didn't reply; he just gazed at her, through her it seemed.

"I can't imagine how I would leave," she said, filling the silence. She waited for him to argue, or agree, or speak; he only yawned. "How would I leave?" she demanded then.

He pushed away from the stall and took a slow step towards her. She stared at the crop in his hand. "You would…" He took another step. "Get on a plane of my choosing…" And then one more. "Fly to Kijuju at a time of my choosing… Live with me… according to my choosing. You'll do all these things… because I wish it."

He dragged the very end of the crop across the barn floor; it scratched a dusty trail on the wood just under the thin covering of hay. She thought of the crop, minutes before, snapping over his thigh. She pressed herself against one of the posts, backing away from him. "You're out of your mind," she said, her throat dry. And then, without thinking: "What happened to Mikhail Ulgov?"

His progress stopped. He stood very still in front of her. " _Why_ … I have no idea. I'm certain you'll tell me though."

"Someone killed him - at the opera that night." The words nearly tumbled from her.

"How horrible," he said, his lips fighting a smile.

Her legs were weak and was sweating with fear. "Was it you? And that little man? Did you _murder_ Mikhail Ulgov?"

He looked at her. One of the horses shuffled. She saw her breath hang in the air.

"Yes," he finally said.

She gasped, one hand coming up to cover her mouth. She stumbled backwards, clinging to the post.

"He begged for his life. It was quite a show," he said as if he was talking over the weather. "A show within a show."

"You're a monster!"

"He rambled on about his children... his woman... the one he _wasn't_ with that night, at least. He cried. It was pitiful."

"Stop!" She whirled around, thinking to run from the barn, run from him - as fast she she could. But her ankle twisted in her riding boot. She yelped.

He was next to her then, his touch like fire, burning her where he had a grip on her upper arm. She dangled, inches from the wooden floorboards, and panting wildly, looked up at him with her great gray eyes. He'd caught her before she'd hit the ground. He'd caught her, despite being ten feet away. He'd caught her in a fraction of a second. It was unbelievable.

"You're going to kill me," she said, the realization more true to her than anything else in her life.

He laughed suddenly - loud and hard. She could feel it all the way down her arm, still in his grasp. "Oh Excella, you make this so easy," he said, trying to catch his breath. "You know as well as anyone that I didn't _kill_ Ulgov. Be reasonable, for God's sake."

They both looked at where he held her. And then he looked at the little gold crucifix on her throat, catching the white winter light and glinting in the shadowy barn.

His eyes grew sharp and puckish.

"Let's go up _there_ … let's go to the loft," he whispered. "Just you and me, hmm? We'll lay together up there, away from everything."

She stared at him, her breath held, her body suspended inches from the floor.

"I promise to not murder you."

He crossed himself with his free hand, and smiled.


	6. Half Pleasure, Half Pain

_"_ _Her legs, her lovely live legs, were not too close together, and when my hand located what it sought, a dreamy and eerie expression, half-pleasure, half-pain, came over those childish features."_

 _\- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita_

* * *

The loft was still and soft.

She followed him up, each rung of the old wooden ladder creaking under their weight. Below, the horses shuffled sleepily in their warm stalls, and there were no other sounds.

He sat on a bale of fragrant hay, tied tightly for the long winter, and he looked out the small single window. She took a seat beside him - not too close, not too far, and watched him stare at the quiet, rolling landscape of Gionne property.

"I've been thinking so much about our future," he said, turning to her.

"I thought you were off somewhere… laughing at me," she said.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the gleam of his sharp, white teeth. "Laughing at you?" He smiled, and leaned very near to her.

She swallowed and picked out a straw, stripping it into amber strands, her fingers nearly shaking as she tried to busy herself. "Yes. Because… of what I did."

"And what exactly did you do?" he asked, his voice teasing. He bumped against her, jostled her.

She couldn't help herself and a shy smile spread across her lips; she rolled her eyes. "Don't be cruel… you _know_."

"I don't, actually," he sighed, laying back on the bale. He looked up at the barn's vaulted roof.

"Terrible things…," she mumbled, her hands working on a new straw.

" _Grotesque_ things," he added with relish, his voice deep and rumbling while he laid down. She imagined that he sounded the same way in bed. The thought made her shiver.

"Come here, little girl." His fingers tugged at the back of her riding shirt, urging her join him.

She shrugged him off, refusing to look at him.

He waited a beat before saying: "You're very ornery today, Miss Gionne."

A bit or a saddle knocked against the side of a stall beneath them.

"No. Just cautious," she said.

He _tsked_ at her. "Oh, Excella…," he taunted, lazy and entertained. She ignored him though, picking at the straw instead. "Alright," he said. "I'll allow you to kiss me… Will that make it better?"

" _What_?" She looked at him, her eyebrows furrowing in disbelief.

He rolled onto his side to face her, propping himself up on an elbow. "I will. I swear it. You can kiss me right here —" He gestured to his mouth. "On the lips, even. But only once."

She chortled out loud then - a sort of _guffaw_.

"Go on." She saw his cheek dimple, the way it always did just before he smirked. "Kiss me and we'll be done with it."

She smiled so broadly it hurt her wind-whipped face. She tried to speak, but kept fumbling over the first word. Looking up at him from under her lashes, thick with yesterday's mascara, she tried to will him into action.

He only watched her through narrowed false blue eyes.

"I don't… I'm not sure how," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"You're not sure how to kiss me?" he asked.

She shook her head.

The sun emerged yellow and warm from behind the heavy winter cloud cover. Dust drifted and caught the light in the air between them, stirred by their breath. From the loft window, she saw a deer walk the length of the hedges on the great lawn - dappled with the white spots of youth, it's knobby, long legs contradictorily graceful.

"What is… your very first… bad memory of your body?" He plucked the straw from her anxious fingers.

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

He turned the piece of hay end over end. "When was the first time you were made to feel shame?"

She took a deep breath and sighed. "Oh."

They were silent and motionless as she thought.

She swallowed before she spoke, and she stared at the barn floor below. "When I was… perhaps twelve, I still played with dolls. Baby dolls. I was… _developed_ … but quite immature for my age." She could see him nodding beside her. "But I was always fascinated by, I'm not sure of the phrase in English - _parto_ ," she tried.

"Childbirth," he translated.

"Yes, that's it." Her jaw worked with the memory, and her eyes remained downcast. "My mother caught me once."

"Caught you?" he asked, tilting his head.

She gazed absently down her legs. "I was… pretending to —" She gestured, sheepishly.

"Pretending to what?"

She motioned as if to cup her breast.

He was silent in his disbelief for several seconds. And then he began to laugh. "Breastfeeding the doll? Truly? You're kidding."

She smiled, because it was somehow a funny _and_ shameful memory, and there was nothing else she could do. She felt her face flush. "I was humiliated. She took all of my dolls. Gone. I never played with a doll again." She dropped her hands to her lap.

He continued to laugh, wiping his eyes. "My apologies… but… breastfeeding a doll…" he said to himself, still unbelieving. "And are you still aroused by it? Do you dream of breastfeeding even now?"

"Don't say it like that," she hissed. "It wasn't that way. I was a little girl."

"Oh, it surely _was_ that way, Miss Gionne," he argued, almost impassioned. His voice quickly grew dreamy and low. "What a lovely image… A young Excella, in her pearl-pink bedroom, all cotton and lace, a doll pressed to her sore, budding breasts… The most natural thing in the world. A pity your mother put a stop to it."

She gasped and wheeled around to look at him.

His joy in her was all but gone when she dared to turn back.

He blinked - his face almost unrecognizable in it's pure, cutting apathy.

"I would like you… to unbutton your blouse now," he said.

Her lungs were cold and leaden in her rib cage. She licked her lips. "Unbut… unbutton?" she stammered.

"I want to see your breasts." His voice was devoid of emotion.

She took a desperate breath and stared at him. No one had ever seen her without clothes on, not since she was small child. Her fingers, with a will of their own, found the first button of her riding shirt, just under the prim collar. At the last second, she clutched her shirt tightly. "What about you?" she asked, nearly stumbling over the words in her effort to stall him. "What was your first bad memory?"

He regarded her, impassive. "I have no shame about anything. You know that," he chastised her softly. "Now… unbutton your blouse like a good girl, hmm?"

She hesitated, shivering.

He watched her until his eyes turned hard and angry, but still she did not budge. He sat up on the bale, brushing bits of straw from his shoulder. "You're a willful thing today, Excella… If I had sense, I'd take you over my knee."

She didn't respond. Her body was wracked by an occasional jolt of cold winter air; her thighs quivered and she tried hard to keep herself still.

"What if…" He looked up, feigning thoughtfulness. "What if we played a game? Yes?"

She swallowed, her trembling finger tips on the button just under her throat. "What kind of game?"

"What if I asked you about an experience… and if you've had the experience, you have to unbutton just one single little button… and if you haven't had the experience, you don't have to do anything." He leaned back, resting on his palms. His expression was sly.

She stared at him, a sudden surge of determination washing over her. "That's unfair. You know what I haven't…" She stopped.

"Oh, I do. And I wouldn't dare ask about something so obvious," he smiled. "Come now, Excella. You act as if I have no sense of sport."

"I want to play too though," she said, trying to sound adamant.

"Of course you do," he said, taunting.

"And if I ask about an experience you haven't had —"

He raised an eyebrow, doubtful. "There's precious little that I haven't —"

"I get to re-button one button."

He looked at her, narrowing his eyes in the harsh daylight. "Fair enough," he conceded. "Let's begin then."

She nodded.

"Have you ever slept nude?" he asked.

"No," she said, and then quietly: "Have you ever had more than one woman… at once?"

"On many occasions," he replied, too quickly, too casually. She felt the sting of it and thought that perhaps this game was not going to be _any_ fun at all for her. Before she could tamp down the ridiculous jealousy, he was on to the next question. "Have you ever masturbated in someone else's bed?"

She sat very still for a few moments. Her fingers, shaking, undid the button at her throat. He smiled victoriously.

She sniffled in the cold and forced her back to be very straight and proud. "Have you ever slept with a man?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes… there have been men." From the corner of her eye, she watched him studying her. "Do you find me less desirable… knowing I've shared my bed with men?"

She swallowed. "Not at all."

He squinted at her, appraising her. "Have you ever bled through your clothing, during your menses?"

She flinched, and took a deep breath. Without even glancing at him, she undid the second button. Her riding shirt lay butterflied just below her collar bone. "Have you ever…" she paused and bit the inside of her cheek. This next one would have to be calculated. "Have you ever had sexual thoughts about a family member?"

"Often," he confessed easily, his countenance relaxed.

"Be serious," she scolded.

"I am. My sister is one of the most beautiful women on earth," he said.

She crossed her arms.

"Have you ever fantasized about being hurt?" His voice was soft.

She licked her bottom lip slowly, stared down at her boots… and felt the third button slip out of its eyelet.

"Have you ever fantasized about _me_ hurting you?" he asked quickly, excitedly.

"It's not your turn."

"Touché," he admitted.

"Have you ever slept with your sister?" she asked, not daring to meet his eyes.

"Back to her, hmm?" He sighed. "Define _slept with_."

"Have you ever put your penis inside of her vagina?" she ground out.

He smiled. "You've won that question, Ms. Gionne. I have not, in fact, fucked my sister…" He shook his head. " _Vaginally_."

She held her breath - furious and embarrassed by his admission.

"Well, button up," he said, laughing.

She roughly rejoined the third button and its eyelet.

"I do hope you're not finished playing," he said, lazily running his fingertips over the hay bale.

She rolled her eyes but didn't move to leave.

"Have you ever thought of me, when you've brought yourself to orgasm?" he asked.

Taking a deep breath, she undid the button she'd just reclaimed. She glanced at him; he was smiling again, smugly. "Have you ever been in love?"

He was silent.

She looked at him again, turning so she could really _see_ him.

His Cheshire grin was gone. "I have," he said, his eyes averted. "Have _you_ … ever been in love?"

She unbuttoned one more.

"Have you been… sleeping with other women… recently?" she asked, halting and weak, unsure of whether or not she wanted the answer.

He looked at her, expressionless. His eyes drifted down to her cleavage; the lace trim of her simple nude bra peaked out from underneath the hem of her riding shirt. It was unbuttoned nearly to her stomach and she was suddenly, painfully aware of herself. Her skin goose bumped under his gaze.

"We're not playing the game anymore, are we, Miss Gionne?" he said. He took a breath, his eyes still fixed on the tight valley between her breasts. "I have taken a lover, yes," he said, after deliberating.

Her jaw clenched and her hands moved to her shirt.

He grabbed her wrists. "Don't," he warned.

"I'm not a _fool_ ," she spat out. She glared at him and tried to wrench free of his iron grasp, breathless in her fury. "I'm not your fool!"

She barely registered the first slap. It happened so quickly that she didn't have a chance to feel the sting before the second slap caught her.

She heard herself make a sound - something half-gasp and half-cry.

The left side of her face went quite numb for a few surprising seconds, and then pins and needles set in - a terrible biting sensation.

She blinked, made dumb from the two quick snaps of his hand.

 _He had just hit her. He had just lifted his hand, so casually, and slapped her. She was a woman - a young woman - and he had…_ struck _her. Surely… surely she had imagined it. It couldn't be real. No. None of it could be real._

They stared at each other - a split-second of shocked contact - and then his cruel hand sank into her messy hair, yanking her head back. She gasped, her arms reaching out futilely to steady herself, but he was unyielding and he held her, effortlessly, frozen in place. His mouth was hot against her throat, against her burning cheek; his nose, so long and sharp, nuzzled the unruly curls at her hairline. He breathed her in.

"Oh, but you _are_ my fool, Miss Gionne… You are absolutely…"

She winced, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Unquestioningly…"

The tip of his wet tongue traced the very edge of her delicate ear.

"My beautiful little _fool_ ," he whispered.

Below, the horses shuffled and the cold, static air made her ache.

"No more games, hmm…" he said softly, and it seemed almost a question.

She opened her eyes and his own came into focus. A thin, brilliant ring of orange glittered around his false blue irises. His mouth was open, ever so slightly, and his breath plumed out around them in the bitter air like the breath of a dragon. She shivered and managed to shake her head, despite his grip on her hair.

Time stopped.

She didn't feel the cold anymore, she didn't feel the embarrassment from moments ago, she didn't feel anything but her body. And how _exquisitely_ she felt her body - the scratching straw beneath her hands, the ache in her neck, the threatening and somehow reassuring tug of her hair in his fingers… the drop of sweat, slow and strange and unbelonging, that ran from the dip in her collar bone to her navel.

She swallowed and struggled no more.

He licked his lips. "My heart is pounding for you," he whispered. " _Feel it_."

She searched his face for deception, for sarcasm. She found none. Hesitant, she brought her hand up and placed it on his chest.

The silk of his dress shirt was hot to the touch, shockingly so. She felt the beating of his heart, felt the way it nearly vibrated the space between them with it's power. It was like an animal, thrashing in a cage of bone and muscle.

Slowly, gently, he eased his own hand up her body, to just above her left breast. The other hand remained firmly in her hair. He touched her so lightly, there, over her own traitorous heart, it felt only like the stirring of air against her hypersensitive skin.

Her stomach was ill; it fluttering and tumbling on itself, the saccharine tea nauseating her. She felt she would _die_ if he didn't say something, anything.

But he only held her there, somewhere between the ticking seconds.

And then, his hand, painfully warm and terrible, slipped inside her unbuttoned shirt.

She gasped and arched up - not knowing if she was trying to escape him or ensnare herself.

His unsmiling mouth was open above her face; his breath labored and quick. And his fingers… his fingers trailed softly over the swell of her breast.

"Please," she whimpered. Her scalp throbbed and her hands balled in his beautiful shirt, _clinging_ and _pushing_ at the very same time.

His brow twitched - a micro expression, so fleeting that anyone else would have missed it. But she was too close to him, she was practically in his lap, and everything was horribly magnified.

His fingertips worked just into the tight cup of her bra.

He was so hot, his skin was so searing-hot… She was being branded, burned alive.

"Please," she panted.

He pushed his entire hand inside of her bra.

She gasped.

He held her breast and looked at her face, watched her so intently that she felt like an insect, like one of his fabled monsters. The pad of his thumb, surprisingly callused, passed over her nipple. Her whole body spasmed in response.

He weighed her in his palm, his expression belying his shock, and then his fingers, spread wide over the globe of her tit, squeezed so viciously that her flesh ballooned between them.

She winced, screwing her watery eyes shut.

He pressed his face to hers again. "You've hidden _this_ from me," he whispered against her cheek. His hand relaxed in the cup of her bra, teasing fingertips finding the hardened nipple and drawing tight, slow circles around the tender areola. "You've hidden this… _obscene_ body." She cried out, trying to jerk herself from his grasp.

But he held tight, his breath shaking and ragged on her skin. "These aren't breasts…," he smiled, and she could feel his teeth. She flinched. He laughed at her, he laughed against her face. "These are _udders_ , Excella."

She sobbed. The secret place between her legs tightened painfully.

He shook her tit, smiling cruelly at the way the fatty tissue undulated in his hand. "Udders," he repeated, incredulous.

Before she knew what was happening, he'd pulled his hand free of her bra and was yanking her riding shirt the rest of the way open. She felt the material rip under his rough treatment; she heard the _ping_ of an ivory button on the floor boards below.

Her bra was torn apart at the clasp, just between her breasts. She yelped as he fairly lifted her up by it; she was stunned when the fabric and plastic gave out. The January air bit at her skin and made her poor nipples ache with hardness.

When the frenzy was over, she found herself pinned on her back, her thighs spread wide around his, the bale of hay like a thousand pricking needles on her skin. He was poised above her, as still as a statue, studying her body. Her breasts swayed with every one of her stuttering breaths.

But then, he recoiled. His face blanched, his jaw clenched, and he glowered at her collarbone - _disgusted_.

Timidly, she touched the place where his eyes focused. The little golden crucifix. She'd forgotten. She pressed it into her throat, felt the chilly metallic comfort of it one last time… and then turned it, so that it fell behind her neck, out of his sight.

He nodded his approval, nearly smiling. "Just look at this… Good God…," he marveled. His fingers hovered over her breasts, trembling… _afraid_ perhaps that touching her might somehow destroy the vision before him. "Look at what's mine," he said so quietly he might have been talking to himself.

She stared straight up at the barn's roof, avoiding his starved gaze.

"One day," he started, and his kindling touch was on her again. She arched to meet both of his electrifying hands. Her nipples pebbled under his palms. "I will fill these… and then I will well and truly _milk_ you."

She turned her face, her hand at her mouth, stifling a pathetic mewl. He buried his nose just under her soft jaw, alternately stroking and crushing her full breasts. Feather-light caresses, followed by punishing squeezes.

She was sure he would leave her black and blue after he'd had his way.

But then he smoothed her ruined bra strap down her limp arm, and placed four delicate kisses to her bare shoulder, three more to the lovely slope of her clavicle, and one to the very center of her naked breastbone. His breath fanned over her like steam, heating her through. She closed her eyes, the knuckle of her little finger between her lips.

 _Back and forth, pleasure and pain, resistance and submission_. Her head swam with the competing urges to offer her agonized body up to him, and flee - simply push him off, and run home… back to the safety of her parents' villa, back to the safety of her childhood.

She knew though, that the places and times she'd held so sacred and dear… no longer existed. He'd desecrated them the second he'd said she belonged to him.

She existed in a different world now. A world of _his_ choosing.

He tugged her nipples, between thumb and forefinger, bringing her back to him. He pulled her heavy breasts up, and let them go, seeming to relish the way they bounced painfully on her chest.

His hips pressed her thighs open wider still, wedging himself between her legs, until their bodies met and locked together like the pieces of an ancient puzzle. Through all their layers of clothing, she could _feel_ him, the length of his bestial cock - what must have been the stiff curve of the underside, right on the source of all of her heat and wetness. He thrust against her, just once, and she finally broke her silence - a pitiful moan spilling out from behind her fingers.

He slapped her - harder than before, across the right side of her face. Her head snapped at the force of it, her swollen mouth open in a silent scream. She wept under him - tearless, breathless sobbing - her hands reaching out, touching his face until he forced them away; she clung loosely to his wrists, his muscled forearms, crying… She was weak. Powerless. Desperate.

" _Please_ ," she begged.

He held her still, gripped her elegant pale throat, his fingers tightening like a noose until her cheeks and lips throbbed with trapped blood.

And then his wicked mouth fell on hers.

* * *

When she was eight years old, she had almost drown in the family pool.

She remembered, quite vividly, the fall of sunlight, the strange glugging quietness, the sparkling of turquoise mosaic tiles… the pain of her collapsing lungs as she inhaled mouthfuls of chlorine and rainwater.

Her grandfather, God rest his soul, dove in and dragged her back to the surface, forced the life into her.

She had never kissed anyone, had no frame of reference really, nothing to compare it with.

But Albert Wesker had finally closed the space between them.

There was no one to save her this time.

He kissed her… and it felt like _dying_.


	7. Come Just As You Are

_"_ _Life is short. From here to that old car you know so well there is a stretch of twenty, twenty-five paces. It is a very short walk. Make those twenty-five steps. Now. Right now. Come just as you are. And we shall live happily ever after. "_

 _Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita_

* * *

She stumbled from the barn back up to the villa, clinging to Albert Wesker with icy, desperate hands. She saw, as they climbed the hill near her home, that her father's pathetic gray Subaru was parked just to the side of the Ferrari.

Her legs faltered, the toe of her riding boot catching on a little stone. He pulled her up slowly and gently. He looked down at her where she was crushed into his chest, so warm and hard under her touch. She felt defenseless and weak in his embrace.

She wanted to live there for the rest of her life.

"A little further," he whispered into her hair, playful.

The horizon was darkening at the edges as another bitter winter evening fell over the Italian countryside. Even though the sun had emerged at days end, the birds were still silent in their barren trees. She looked up and around, dazed and unsteady. Her breath and his, their very lives, mixed together and made clouds that swirled up and away into the cold sky.

"Soon, I will send you the vaccines… You will have to administer them yourself." He spoke softly to her, his face so near to hers, his fingers, incapable of winter numbness, pulling her ruined riding shirt together. He buttoned what was left to button.

In slow motion, her bee-stung mouth came up to his and offered itself. His lips brushed hers while his hand came to cradle her face. She pressed her pink cheek to his palm and kissed his thumb when he ran it like a feather over her bottom lip.

"Typhus," he said and kissed her forehead. "Cholera." Another kiss, on the childish peak of her nose. "Yellow fever." Her temple then, his breath tickling the wispy curls there. "Progenitor."

Impatient, she wrapped her arms about his neck and dragged him down for another kiss. She tried to deepen it, the tip of her tongue still hesitant, touching his lips. He smiled against her seduction. She tried again; he stilled her, his hands on her throat. He didn't squeeze.

She stared into his false blue eyes.

"The Progenitor vaccine will make you very ill, Excella… You'll feel as if you're…" He stopped.

" _Dying_ ," she breathed.

"Yes."

Her pupils were enormous, her skin was flushed. She wanted more than anything to impress him. "I can't wait," she said suddenly, at once knowing just what she was saying, and having no understanding of it at all.

He laughed and regarded her with what seemed like _real_ affection, perhaps a little disbelief.

"A few kisses and you're ready to take on the world, hmm?" he asked. He took a deep breath and worked on making her shirt somehow presentable again, to no avail. "You'd do well to get that smutty look off your face, young lady."

"They don't care." She stared at him, wide-eyed and love-drunk.

"Nonsense," he mumbled.

"They _don't_. My mother would sell me to the wolves," she said, half-serious.

"Perhaps she already has." He snapped the hem of her shirt so that it lay as chastely as it could across her generous breasts. "But image is everything." He arranged the collar around her neck. "And _our_ image…" He rolled the sleeves back into neat cuffs at her elbows. "Must be flawless."

He straightened and their gazes met again in the fading light. The last sliver of sun burned like a forest fire on the edge of the landscape while the silence between them stretched on forever.

She shifted and the gravel crunched beneath her riding boots.

He leaned against the Ferrari. "I have something for you to read, in your spare time. On the passenger seat." He nodded in it's direction. "Go ahead. Fetch it."

She kept her eyes on him and rounded the wide back of the car. She reached the handle and fumbled with it until she saw him click the key, hidden away in his pocket. The Ferrari's doors swung up like a pair of fire-engine red wings. Trembling, she moved his fine leather gloves aside and picked up the book she'd wondered at earlier. She ran a careful hand over the front.

It was a very old book; it felt fragile and alive. She surveyed the worn edges, where the strange coarse fabric was split and pulling apart.

"I'm afraid they only printed _that_ version in French," he said from the other side of the car. "It's a very rare edition. I wanted you to have the one with… illustrations." After a moment, he added with a smirk: "A picture book for a little girl."

She swallowed, touching the hand-stitched binding. Her fingertips admired the clever work. She slowly opened the cover.

"You _can_ read French, can't you?" he asked, a patronizing lilt in his voice.

" _Oui_ ," she said as her eyes ravenously scanned the title page. On the left, an engraving of a distressed young woman, accosted by a nude man and older woman. They appeared to be lifting a veil from the girl's head. On the right, _Justine ou Les Malheurs De La Vertu_.

Her heart beat hard. "What… what is it about?"

His smile grew. "Keep it under your pillow, hmm?"

She paged through the book until she came upon another engraving. The twilight made it difficult to read all but the boldest font, the engravings were clear enough though when she held the book close to her face.

She made out the girl from the title page… stripped naked, crawling up the steps of an alter, the attending friar on his hands and knees behind her, licking her buttocks, as his own bare backside was being fondled by a half-clothed younger man.

She gasped, knowing well then why she had to keep the gift to herself.

"Excella."

She looked up, the book still split apart in her cold, shaking hands.

"You will belong to me, when you come to Africa," he said quietly. "There will be nothing else. Only me." He looked down at her throat. "And I will not tolerate anymore fairytales."

Her hand came up and her fingers worried the crucifix. She nodded and her head felt weightless, full of air, everything suspended.

" _Bonne nuit_ , Ms. Gionne," he said as he got into the Ferrari. "And enjoy the bedtime story."

* * *

She held onto the door frame and stepped over the threshold. There were tremors that still ran up her back, and her entire body seemed to contract with unspent electricity. Tighten, release, tighten, release. He had kissed her. He had touched her, and no one had ever touched her… He had promised her that no one else would ever, ever touch her. Only him. Only _his_ hands, only _his_ body. It was maddening and she felt intoxicated - _that_ was what it was, she thought wildly: intoxication.

From the parlor, she heard her parents talking, their voices low. She knew exactly what they'd look like, sitting in the same places at the same table that they had every evening for all years she'd been alive.

"I don't know," her father sighed. He was speaking in English. That surprised her, but then it did not. She knew they'd all be speaking English a lot more soon. _For Dr. Wesker_. She thought of him too, at the table with her dear parents.

 _Asking for permission to marry her, perhaps._

She smiled to herself, bending her knee and unzipping a riding boot.

 _No_ , she thought better of it. _He would never ask anyone for permission_.

And that was thrilling too. He was liable to steal her away, or maybe they would marry in Africa. _That was what he had meant_ , she was sure - _she would belong to him entirely, when she got to Africa. She would come home… on vacation, her skin bronzed from the African sun, in the middle of a truly awful winter in Italy… Yes, and the ring… Enormous. An enormous African diamond. She could see Arianna's face - her lovely, envious face…_

"I've heard terrible things about him —"

"Rumors. Just rumors," her mother cut in.

"Not rumors, no. The Umbrella Incident was real. It happened." Her father's voice rose. "It happened, Biatta."

"It was a corrupt company," her mother hissed. "He exposed them. He did the right thing. You don't agree with his methods but —"

"He's a criminal."

" _But_ he did the right thing. He is a moralist, an extreme moralist. He has honor—"

"Oh, Biatta, listen to yourself sell that… _terrorist_."

"And what have _you_ done?" her mother finally snapped. "What will you do for our daughter? For this family?!"

Her father was silent.

Excella unzipped the other riding boot, her head still cocked towards the dining room.

"Think, Antonio, think. He will propel her career to the stars… perhaps… perhaps he will come to care for her as well. Yes? And that would be best, wouldn't it? Financially. For all of us. _Think_ , my love."

What was left of Excella's giddy smile died on her lips. She felt the familiar prick of tears in her eyes, in her nose. She held her breath and waited for her father's reply.

But he said nothing. Not one word.

She turned and shuffled to the grand staircase.

"Excella? Is that you?" her mother called.

She walked backwards until she was framed by the parlor doorway.

Her mother swirled half a glass of wine and smiled amiably. One of her awful high heels hung from her toe, bouncing.

Her father sat in one of the wingback chairs, the fire place lit up behind him. He glanced at Excella and looked away.

"Have you made a decision, _vita mia_?" She cleared her throat. "About the offer?"

Excella stared at her, her face blank. Her mother's eyes drifted - all the way down the front of her ruined shirt. She saw the missing buttons, the ripped fabric. She must have seen her hair - a rat's nest now, matted with bits of hay. And what of her swollen, bitten lips? Her hazy, unfocused eyes? Was it possible that her mother missed them?

She watched her mother's expression change; concern… disgust… and finally, acceptance.

Albert Wesker could have _raped_ her half to death in that barn. She could have dragged herself through the front door, broken and bleeding. And her mother, in all her stunning greed, would have looked the other way.

"Excella?" she asked, fake patience barely covering up her excitement.

"Yes," Excella replied then, in such a monotonous voice that she barely recognized it as her own. "I'm going to Africa with Dr. Wesker."

Her mother clapped, the now-adoring gaze volleying between her father and her. "Oh, my love, this is such wonderful news! We're so proud of you!" She grasped his arm. "Aren't we, dear? We're so proud!"

Her father didn't speak.

He was complicit in the prostitution of his only daughter.

Excella nodded slowly, understanding more than she ever had.

Her mother laughed, standing and smoothing her skeletal hands on her skirt. "Let me get you a drink… A drink for our beautiful, successful daughter, right Antonio? A drink."

But Excella was already walking up the great marble stairs to her bedroom, the book tucked tight under her arm.

 _Dr. Wesker was wrong,_ she thought, bitterly _. He was wrong. He didn't have to wait until she got to Africa._

The veil had parted that night.

There truly wasn't anything left for her… _but_ _him_.

* * *

 _Baby, can't you see_

 _I'm calling_

 _A guy like you should wear a warning_

 _It's dangerous_

 _I'm falling_

* * *

Thursday had a terrible habit of dragging.

She sat in front of her computer, clicking the mouse at steady but meaningless intervals, her eyes unseeing, her ears tamped shut with her headphones. She knew well enough what she was supposed to be doing - searching through a team's CAD work for errors in coding an altered DNA strand - but she couldn't focus long enough to finish the damn thing; she'd been sitting on that same, stupid task for days.

At least she couldn't hear anything but the music.

* * *

 _Oh, the taste of your lips_

 _I'm on a ride_

 _You're toxic I'm slippin' under_

 _With a taste of a poison paradise_

 _I'm addicted to you_

 _Don't you know that you're toxic?_

* * *

She clicked and waited, her index finger poised just above the mouse. The scroll bar moved a fraction of a fraction of a millimeter.

She clicked again and rolled her eyes. It was ridiculous, these mindless things they set her on. She'd be leaving, any time now, for Africa. He'd send for her and she could stop caring about even showing up after that.

* * *

 _It's getting late_

 _To give you up_

 _I took a sip_

 _From the devil's cup_

 _Slowly, it's taking over me_

 _Too high_

 _Can't come down_

 _It's in the air and—_

* * *

She studied her nails intently, the perfect little half-moons of her cuticles. She ran a hand through her hair and spun in the chair. He would love for her to wear it down _always_ , she knew. He adored the way she was feminine and soft and so much his opposite. She turned and turned, lifting her feet up so that she spun faster with each push. She closed her eyes and let herself become dizzy.

 _He was crazy about her_ , she thought, playing with her hair and mouthing the words to the song. He's said he _couldn't stop thinking about her_ , and nothing else mattered - not her parents, not the lab, not any of the idiots around her.

* * *

 _Intoxicate me now_

 _With your lovin' now_

 _I think I'm ready now_

* * *

She sighed and nudged the mouse so that the screensaver wouldn't activate.

11:34.

Half an hour. She just needed to make it to lunch.

* * *

She returned from break at 12:45. A carrot stick snapped between her front teeth, her lunch bag dangling from one wrist. She chewed loudly, obnoxiously, relishing in the pleasure of an almost empty laboratory.

She fell into the rolling chair absently - a well-practiced move - and scooted up to her workstation. She toed out of her little ballet flats, pulled her hair back from her face with a banana clip, and slid her badge through the chip reader on the side of her monitor.

And there it was.

She froze, staring at a beautiful teal box, tied perfectly with an iridescent white bow, in the very center of her desk.

Her heart fluttered. She reached for it, yanking on the tag to inspect the message.

 _To: Miss E. Gionne._

 _From: A.W._

Her fingers trembled uncontrollably. She held her breath and with a single, hurried tug, undid the shining white bow. Unsure, she touched the box over and over before finally working up enough courage to open it. She laid the top on her desk, and slowly peeled away layers of folded tissue paper - almost the same seafoam blue as the box itself, flecked with champagne-colored sparkles.

Underneath the delicate wrapping was an oblong stainless steel case.

She lifted it, feeling its weight, and studied it under the hard florescent lights.

She released the latch on the case and opened it.

Five small vials glittered back at her, nestled in fitted black velvet.

 _Even his diseases were exquisite._

She touched each one, reading the tiny, hand-written labels beneath, each with it's own set of directions for administration.

 _Cholera_. _Typhoid_. _Yellow Fever_. And as he'd promised: _Progenitor_ and _Progenitor Anti-Viral_.

To the farthest right was the polished silver injection device. She tilted her head, thoughtful; it looked harmless enough. Something like an elegant piercing gun. His miniature notes described exactly how to load the injector and where to deliver each dose for maximum effectiveness.

 _Tonight_ , she told herself, confidence crashing over her like a wave. _Tonight, I'll begin the journey._

Cautious, she closed the little case, locking the clasp quietly. Her eyes went back to the gift box and she frowned. It had seemed so heavy - several pounds, surely. Perhaps she was just being greedy - like her mother, always desiring more. Probably so. Most likely.

She reached for it anyways and brushed aside the rest of the tissue paper. She felt plastic wrap with her fingertips. There _was_ something else for her!

A Post-It note was stuck to whatever was at the bottom. She pulled it off and read it. It was written in the same sharp script, the same thin ink.

 _Practice makes perfect._

She frowned. "What?" she asked, confused. She pulled the blue box to the edge of the desk and peered inside.

 _Medela_. She squinted to read the rest. _Medela Freestyle Breastpump Deluxe Set_.

 _Breastpump._

Her hand went immediately to her mouth, suppressing her shocked cry.

There was a picture of a young mother under the label - the suction cups attached discreetly to her entirely average breasts, an entirely average smile on her entirely average face.

Excella choked. She pushed the box away and stared at it, as if it might leap at her. She licked her lips and her throat was dry and painful.

A breastpump. He had sent her a breastpump. On a Thursday afternoon. At her place of business. Her heart thundered in her chest.

 _He was insane. He was completely insane._

"Topo!" Arianna called from the other end of the hallway.

Excella grabbed the case of vaccines and tossed it in the box, crumpling the tissue paper over it all and then jamming the lid back on. Panicked, she sloppily tied the gift back together with the ribbon, giving up on the rabbits ears and just double-knotting it before she dropped it to the floor and tried to punt it under her desk.

Arianna strolled up the aisle between the workstations. Someone from the other side of lab shushed her and she ignored them, her troubling gaze locked on Excella. She slowed as she approached. Excella glanced nervously at the blue box, nudging it further away with her foot.

"Topo, why haven't you answered any of my emails?" Arianna stood over her, arms crossed.

Excella looked at the computer screen guiltily. She gestured to the database. "I've been analyzing something… here." Britney Spears was still screeching from her discarded headphones.

Arianna sighed. "Yeah, o-kay," she shook her head. "Anyway, you will not believe what I heard about Caleb." She took the liberty of perching on Excella's desk, nearly pushing her out of the way. "I heard his family basically like, cut him off from…" Her ass bumped the mouse and the screen minimized; she didn't notice and continued to gossip.

Excella tried to concentrate on her friend's red mouth. She nodded seriously at various pauses in Arianna's monologue, hearing the muffled words like she'd once heard a ticking watch wrapped in cotton. She licked her lips again and a flushing heat bloomed on her chest, spreading up her throat. Her pale skin was turning hot and red. She blinked. Arianna was still talking, almost to herself. Excella sniffled and nodded again for good measure, tugging her blouse up to cover the furious blotches she knew were there. She could practically feel the evil box he'd sent. It was barely hidden beneath them. Her eyes were drawn to the goddamn thing, it would be any minute before she —

Arianna asked a question.

Excella stopped and listened to the silence, a deer in headlights.

"Hello? I said, Are you sick or what?"

Excella swallowed, her stomach relaxing. She realized how she must have looked, clawing at her shirt collar. "No… no, I'm just cold." A reflex, she glanced down.

"What are you looking at?" Arianna asked.

Excella frowned and tried to feign ignorance. "Nothing?"

"You're lying. What's under your desk, you slut?" Arianna smiled broadly.

Excella knew Arianna was going to turn the wicked box into a challenge. She had to stop it before…

Arianna was already crouching down.

Excella struck out with her foot, desperately attempting the kick the package away.

"Oh my god, you fucking nut! What are you doing?" Arianna laughed. She crawled under the desk then.

Excella dumped herself out of the chair and made one last effort to keep the town tattler from getting a glimpse inside. She fell to her hands and knees and followed Arianna as her chair rolled slowly across the hallway.

"Oh wow… is that something from _Tiffany's_?" Arianna exclaimed when she saw the hue of the filthy box. "Who sent you Tiffany? What was it? A key necklace?" A barrage of excited questions.

"It's none of your business," Excella growled at her.

They struggled briefly, both girls yanking on pretty ribbon, only tightening the clumsy knot. The box was slung back and forth between them.

By the time Excella could wrestle the package away, the damage had been done; Arianna had seen the gift tag.

"A.W.?" Arianna asked, breathless. She pushed herself out from under. "A.W.?"

Excella held the box to her chest, protectively. She scowled.

Arianna looked astonished when the idea came to her. " _Albert Wesker_?"

Excella was stone-faced.

"You're kidding… Albert Wesker?" Arianna whispered again. Her eyes were wide. "You-you really know him? He sends _you_ presents from Tiffany's?" She looked betrayed, stupefied.

Excella's jaw clenched.

"I never… I didn't actually believe you'd met him… I mean… I —"

"I'm leaving. I'm going to Africa," Excella blurted out, unable to contain herself.

Arianna stood absolutely still and stared at her.

"I'm going to Africa… with him."

"With Albert Wesker?"

Excella narrowed her eyes and her mouth set in a prideful line.

Arianna's lips twitched at the corners until she smiled… and then began to laugh.

Her resolve wavering, Excella took a deep breath. Her heart felt as if it was in her throat.

"What the hell… would Albert Wesker… want with you, Mouse?" Arianna finally managed. She pretended to flick away a tear from her laughter. "You're next to useless in a lab."

 _She's jealous_ , a voice in Excella's mind said. A deep voice, not her own. _She's jealous and she'll take what's yours._

Something ugly exploded in her then. She stepped in close to Arianna, close enough to seem as if they were about to embrace. "He doesn't want someone like you… because you're a _whore_. A used-up whore who can only get married men to fuck her."

Arianna looked as if she'd been slapped. Her mouth went slack and her pretty face seemed suddenly… plain.

" _Lui ha scelto me. Mi sceglieva mille volte_ ," Excella said through gritted teeth.

In shock, Arianna backed away from her. She bumped into the chair, nearly stumbling, and then turned.

Excella watched her leave, watched the alluring sway go right out of her shapely hips, watched her practically run.

She hugged the package tightly and a new mantra repeated itself over and over in her head, until she couldn't think of anything else.

* * *

Nothing but him.

Nothing but him.

 _Nothing but him._


End file.
